Genesis - BBC Broadcasts (2023)

The 5CD and 3LP-boxsets in detail

Genesis and the BBC - there have been several radio broadcasts of the band's performances on the traditional British radio station. These go back to 1970 and the last time there was a broadcast of a Genesis concert was in 2007. There are many recordings and bootlegs circulating among the fans, because only a few of these broadcasts have been officially released so far. All the greater was the joy when it was announced in autumn 2022 that Genesis would be releasing a BBC box set. Genesis: BBC Broadcasts will be released on 3 March 2023 as a 5CD set or 3LP box. It can now be preordered, i.e. at Burningshed, amazonUK, amazonFR, amazom.com and elsewhere.

We have gathered all the information (including details about the BBC archives) in this article, and you will also find an in-depth evaluation of the content and artwork.

1. What is included in the two box sets?

The CD box set comes as a portrait format box and includes a 40-page booklet. The five CDs are enclosed as card sleeves.

The CDs contain the following tracks:

CD1 Early BBC

01 Shepherd (Night Ride, BBC Radio Two Session, 1970)
02 Pacidy (Night Ride, BBC Radio Two Session, 1970)
03 Let Us Now Make Love (Night Ride, BBC Radio Two Session, 1970)
04 The Fountain of Salmacis (Live at Paris Studios, London, UK, 1972)
05 The Musical Box (Live at Paris Studios, London, UK, 1972)
06 Stagnation (Sounds of the 70s, BBC Radio One Session, 1971)
07 Harlequin (BBC Radio One John Peel Session, 1972)
08 Get 'Em Out By Friday (BBC Radio One John Peel Session, 1972)
09 Harold the Barrel (BBC Radio One John Peel Session, 1972)
10 Twilight Alehouse (BBC Radio One John Peel Session, 1972)
11 Watcher of the Skies (Live in Wembley BBC Radio One In Concert, 1975)

CD2 (Knebworth 78 / Lyceum 80)

01 Squonk (Knebworth 78)
02 Burning Rope (Knebworth 78)
03 Dance On A Volcano (Knebworth 78)
04 Drum Duet (Knebworth 78)
05 Los Endos (Knebworth 78)
06 Deep In The Motherlode (Lyceum 80)
07 Dancing With The Moonlit Knight (Lyceum 80)
08 The Carpet Crawlers (Lyceum 80)
09 One For The Vine (Lyceum 80)
10 Behind The Lines (Lyceum 80)
11 Duchess (Lyceum 80)
12 Guide Vocal (Lyceum 80)
13 Turn It On Again (Lyceum 80)
14 Duke's Travels (Lyceum 80)
15 Duke's End (Lyceum 80)

CD3 (Lyceum 80 und Wembley 87)
01 Say It's Alright Joe (Lyceum 80)
02 The Lady Lies (Lyceum 80)
03 Ripples (Lyceum 80)
04 In The Cage (Lyceum 80)
05 The Raven (Lyceum 80)
06 Afterglow (Lyceum 80)
07 Follow You Follow Me (Lyceum 80)
08 I Know What I Like (Lyceum 80)
09 The Knife (Lyceum 80)
10 Mama (Wembley 87)
11 Domino (Wembley 87)

CD4 (Wembley 87 und NEC 98)

01 That's All (Wembley 87)
02 The Brazilian (Wembley 87)
03 Throwing It All Away (Wembley 87)
04 Home By the Sea (Wembley 87)
05 Second Home By the Sea (Wembley 87)
06 Invisible Touch (Wembley 87)
07 Drum Duet (Wembley 87)
08 Los Endos (Wembley 87)
09 Not About Us (Live at Birmingham N.E.C., UK, 1998)
10 The Dividing Line (Live at Birmingham N.E.C., UK, 1998)

CD5 (Knebworth 92)

01 No Son Of Mine
02 Driving The Last Spike
03 Old Medley
04 Fading Lights
05 Hold On My Heart
06 I Can't Dance

It is striking that some of the shows (apparently to save space or CDs) start in the middle of a CD and are then split over two CDs. It is also noticeable that there is only one dedicated to the early BBC recordings and that some of the later ones have been shortened. Somewhat surprisingly, there are also two tracks from the show with Ray Wilson in Birmingham in 1998 - in the more recent releases, this period was often not included. These two tracks are not placed at the very end, but can be found as some kind of appendix on CD4.

The 3LP set is a heavily shortened version of the 5CD box set. There is no booklet here (at least the images we know indicate there is none) and the 3 LPs contain these tracks:

 

 

Why the LP set was shortened is unclear. Presumably they didn't want to make the set too expensive and decided to create a best-of of the 5CD set.

2. What is known about the production of the box sets?

Nick Davis and Tony Banks were apparently in charge of this release. The press release says "curated by Tony Banks", plus the info (from the official promo clip) that Nick Davis remixed and remastered the original master tapes. It was unclear if he had access to all available multitrack tapes and where, if applicable, only the master tapes of the transfers (there are no multitracks of the sessions). Since the release it is clear that these are NOT remixes of the multitracks. In fact, the additional info states that the music was mastered by Nick Davis & Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios.

3. Artwork & Booklet

The front cover of both versions shows an aerial photo of the 1992 Knebworth show, and the new Genesis lettering is based on the earlier BBC lettering. The CD box set has a 40-page booklet with photos and accompanying text. For these, the author consulted David Dunnington's Radio Show Guide and Mario Giammetti's first Genesis book for inspiration. The photos are arranged rather randomly, so you'll find a picture of Steve and Phil next to the text about the very early BBC shows and later Peter and Steve show up when you were thematically already at Knebworth 78 or after. Some illustrations are from years when there were no BBC broadcasts or BBC shows at all. For example, we see a badge from 1982. For the 1992 Knebworth show, which took place on August 2, a ticket from the cancelled August 1 show is illustrated - this is a nice curiosity, to say the least. Then, next to the two Birmingham 98 track descriptions, there is even a photo of Daryl Stuermer and Phil Collins, presumably taken at Knebworth 1990 (whether during Phil's solo set or the Genesis set with Phil Collins' band is unclear). There are also small errors in the text, for example it is stated that Harold The Barrel is from Trespass.

In addition, all five CDs (all in black card sleeves) have their own cover motifs, which are also not consistent in themselves. The Gabriel-era CD shows a flower mask motif of Peter, but Supper's Ready (the track where Peter used to wear this mask) is not included on the CD at all. The cover of the second CD depicts Squonk, but there is no recording from 1976 - the CD starts with the track Squonk from Knebworth 1978 though. On the third CD we find a Domino motif (known from the tour program), but only the last two tracks on the CD are from Wembley 1987. CD 4 shows the Home By The Sea - as we saw it on The Last Domino? Tour on the big screen. The fifth CD shows the festival grounds of Knebworth 1992 - nothing else is included on the CD, so this fits nicely.

On the backcover you can find the list of tracks with the corresponding credits. For Pacidy, Phil Collins is erroneously credited as co-writer.

The CDs themselves (see picture) are all printed in a different color and each have a different Genesis lettering (Trick Of The Tail for the Gabriel era, Lamb/And Then There Were Three for Knebworth 78 and Lyceum 80, Shapes for Lyceum 80 and Wembley 87, Invisible Touch for Wembley 87 and Birmingham 98 and We Can't Dance for Knebworth 92). Thus, for the most part, the lettering does not match the content at all.

The 3LP set has corresponding accompanying illustrations on the inner sleeves of the vinyl records. Again, the illustrated motifs and the music on the vinyl records mostly do not match. Some info is are also incorrect, for example the line-up of the 1980 show includes Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett.

4. Which Genesis recordings does the BBC actually have in its archives?

The following list corresponds to our state of knowledge. Only the titles marked in colour are part of the BBC Broadcasts box set.

Four BBC sessions and one live recording are known from the early years:

a) BBC Night Ride - 22 February 1970 (Studio 4, Maida Vale, London)

Shepherd*
Pacidy*
Let Us Now Make Love*
Stagnation
Looking For Someone

b) Sounds Of The Seventies - 10 May 1971 (Studio T1, Kensington House, Shepherd's Bush, London)

The Musical Box
Stagnation*

c) Sounds Of The Seventies - 09 January 1972 (Studio T1, Kensington House, Shepherd's Bush, London)

Return Of The Giant Hogweed
Harold The Barrel
Fountain Of Salmacis
Harlequin
Harold The Barrel (Mix #2)

d) In Concert - 02 March 1972 (live, BBC Paris Studios, London)

Fountain Of Salmacis
The Musical Box
The Return Of The Giant Hogweed

e) Top Gear - 25 September 1972 (Studio T1, Kensington House, Shepherd's Bush, London)

Twilight Alehouse
Watcher Of The Skies
Get'em Out By Friday

* these track were already released on Archive 1967-1975.

In the following years, concerts were broadcast by the BBC and some of them were live broadcasts:

In Concert (Empire Pool, Wembley, London, 15 April 1975)
01 Watcher Of The Skies (7:45)
02 Cuckoo Cocoon (2:21)
03 In The Cage (6:49)
04 Back In N.Y.C. (6:00)
05 Hairless Heart (2:35)
06 Counting Out Time (3:54)
07 The Carpet Crawlers (5:43)
08 Lilywhite Lilith (2:36)
09 The Waiting Room (9:34)
10 Anyway (3:35)
11 Silent Sorrow In Empty Boats (1:13)
12 The Colony Of Slippermen (Part 1: Arrival) (1:53)
13 Ravine (1:28)
14 The Light Dies Down On Broadway (3:32)
15 Riding The Scree (4:41)

(Note: The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging (which was included on some Westwood One radio shows) does not exist in the BBC archive, also Watcher Of The Skies was an encore and not the opener of the concert, although this was arranged differently on the radio broadcast).

Saturday Afternoon Show (Knebworth Festival, 24 June 1978)

01 Squonk (7:03)
02 Burning Rope (7:49)
03 Ripples (9:58)
04 The Fountain Of Salmacis (9:34)
05 One For The Vine (11:12)
06 Deep In The Motherlode (6:22)
07 The Lady Lies (6:37)
08 Follow You, Follow Me (3:52)
09 Afterglow (4:40)
10 Dance On A Volcano (6:13)
11 Los Endos (5:45)
12 I Know What I Like (8:41)

Only four tracks from this show were included on BBC Broadcasts, presumably because many songs are also included in the following recording:

Friday Rock Show (Lyceum Ballroom, London, 06./07 May 1980)

01 Deep In The Motherlode (5:37)
02 Dancing With The Moonlit Knight (1:50)
03 The Carpet Crawlers (5:36)
04 Squonk (6:44)
05 One For The Vine (11:16)
06 Behind The Lines (5:26)
07 Duchess (6:52)
08 Guide Vocal (1:41)
09 Turn It On Again (4:45)
10 Duke's Travels (7:15)
11 Duke's End (2:41)
12 Say It's Alright Joe (10:43)
13 The Lady Lies (6:18)
14 Ripples (10:07)
15 In The Cage (7:31)
16 The Colony Of Slippermen: The Raven (1:08)
17 Afterglow (4:41)
18 Follow You, Follow Me (4:48)
19 Dance On A Volcano (4:44)
20 Drum Duet (0:52)
21 Los Endos (6:05)
22 I Know What I Like (9:31)
23 The Knife (4:25)

Again, some tracks are missing (these had also been played at Knebworth 78) and The Colony Of Slippermen is titled The Raven on BBC Broadcasts (one of the parts of The Colony Of Slippermen).

More details about Lyceum London & Theatre Drury Lane

The three London concerts at the end of the 1980 UK tour took place on 5 May at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and on 6 and 7 May at the Lyceum Ballroom Theatre. All three were professionally recorded on a 24-track tape machine (the two Lyceum even on videotape), so the versions are hardly distinguishable from each other. On top of that, some radio broadcasts were also announced as "Live from Drury Lane", although - as in all cases - it was always the recording from the Lyceum (7 May). The differentiation or verification of the various versions was ultimately only possible with the help of audience tapes and the single-cam DVD bootleg from 7 May in a rather time-consuming process of elimination.

So these three concerts all belong to the same category. Of these, these pieces have been officially released so far:

Deep in the Motherlode (Archive 2, 5 May Drury Lane)

One For the Vine (Three Sides Live - 5 May Drury Lane); on the radio, the version from the Lyceum 6.5. was always played as an exception, because the band had messed up on 7 May during the transition to the percussion part.

Ripples (Archive 2 - 6 May)

The Lady Lies (Archive 2 - 6 May and as a green-transparent 7" flexydisc supplement of Flexypop magazine, 7 May)

Turn It On Again (B-side of the US Promo 12" of Turn It On Again, 7 May - on the label it says Drury Lane by mistake).

Follow You, Follow Me (Three Sides Live - 7 May)

Duke's Travels / Duke's End (Archive 2 - 7 May)

Additional remarks: The excerpts, which the BBC had broadcast as late as June 1980 on the TV programme The Old Grey Whistle Test, were officially released (with video) on the Duke SACD/DVD in 2007:

Behind the Lines
Duchess
Guide Vocal
In the Cage
Colony of Slippermen: The Raven
Afterglow
Dance on a Volcano
Los Endos

Live broadcast 1987 (Wembley Stadium, London, 04 July 1987)

Mama
Abacab
Domino
That's All
The Brazilian
In The Cage
In That Quiet Earth
Afterglow
Land Of Confusion
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
Throwing It All Away
Home by the Sea
Invisible Touch
Drum Duet
Los Endos
Turn It On Again

Genesis played the last European concerts of their Invisible Touch Tour on four consecutive nights at the sold-out Wembley Stadium in London (1-4 July 1987). The last concert was broadcast live on BBC radio. Excerpts of these concerts first appeared officially in 1988 on the VHS video cassette Invisible Touch Tour, then again in 2003 on the DVD Live at Wembley Stadium. While it was known that all four concerts had been recorded in sound and vision, it was unclear until now which excerpts from which of the four concerts were used for the video and DVD. The In The Cage medley is missing from both editions.
A close comparison between the DVD soundtrack and the available recordings of all four Wembley concerts revealed that the DVD mainly used the 3rd July concert, with several shorter inserts from 2nd July. The first and the last of the four concerts were not used. So the recording of the BBC broadcast is previously unreleased.

Details about the audio soundtrack of the Wembley shows can be found in our new reassessment article about the Wembley DVD.

Live broadcast 1992 (Knebworth, 02 August 1992)

Land Of Confusion
No Son Of Mine
Driving The Last Spike
Dance On A Volcano
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
Musical Box [closing section]
Firth Of Fifth [instrumental]
I Know What I Like
Throwing It All Away
Fading Lights
Jesus He Knows Me
Home By The Sea / Second Home By The Sea
Hold On My Heart
Domino
Drum Duet
I Can't Dance
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
Invisible Touch
Turn It On Again

Parts of this show were eventually released on the bonus DVD of the Extra Tracks 1983-1998 SACD:

Old Medley
Home By The Sea *
Domino

Concert recording (NEC, Birmingham, 25.+26 February 1998)

No Son Of Mine
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway *
Calling All Stations
Carpet Crawlers **
Domino
Dancing With The Moonlit Knight [intro] [acoustic] *
Lover's Leap [acoustic] *
Not About Us [acoustic] *
Mama
The Dividing Line
Invisible Touch **
Turn It On Again **

Concert recording (Twickenham Stadium, London, 8 July 2007)

The concert in Twickenham from 8 July 2007 was not only released as an Encore 2CD, but also mixed from the multitracks by Nick Davis especially for the BBC. This recording was broadcast twice with different tracks.

Duke's Intro
Turn It On Again
No Son Of Mine
Land Of Confusion**
In The Cage / The Cinema Show / Duke's Travels**
Afterglow**
Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea*
I Know What I Like
Mama
Domino**
Los Endos
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
Invisible Touch
Carpet Crawlers**

5. The music

As already described, the broadcasts are unfortunately only shortened (missing tracks) and there were no remixes of the multitracks, so there are no big improvements as far as the sound of the shows is concerned (compared to the known recordings from the BBC archive). The opinions about the sound quality differ widely among the fans, but in fact it is mostly rather small cosmetic changes that Nick Davis has made. We can note the following differences:

Nightride Session 1970 (CD1 T1-3)

The session is a lot louder than on Archive 1967-75, a bit compressed and the treble is minimally raised. The latter didn't have to be, but it sounds a bit fresher this way, of course, though the hiss in the quiet passages is more apparent now. The nice fake stereo effect of the Extra Tracks CD from the 1970-1975 box set has not been adopted, however, they have sticked to the original mono.

Sounds of the 70s-Session 1971 (CD1 T6)

Compared to the Archive 1967-75 version of Stagnation, left and right channels are swapped here. The slightly more compression and slightly reduced lower mids result in slightly greater transparency. Well done.

Sounds of the 70s-Session 1972 (CD1 T7, 9)

Largely identical to the BBC version, but here they have removed the "dirt" below 60 Hz, but not the mains hum. By the way, Harold the Barrel is the alternative mix of this song, first broadcast in 2007.

Paris Studios 1972 (CD1 T4+5)

The oldest radio live recording is more cleanly balanced compared to the BBC version, but the slight mains hum has not been removed. Also a bit more compressed and about 4.5 dB louder.

Top Gear Session 1972 (CD1 T8, 10)

The sound of this session is better than on the untreated archive versions, but not optimal, because the reproduction in the bass range remains poor despite boosting, especially since the mids have been boosted here unnecessarily. There would have been more in it.

Wembley 1975 (CD1 T11)

The somewhat harsh highs of the BBC original are effectively softened here, otherwise everything is virtually identical.

Knebworth 1978 (CD2 T1-5)

The BBC original has a strong overemphasis of the mids between 200 Hz and 1 kHz. To compensate for this at least somewhat, there was an additional boost at 5 kHz. As a result, the bass range sounds very flat and the vocals like out of the can. But as if that wasn't bad enough, the mid-range has been boosted again by 1.5 kHz, although a broadband attenuation would have been the best choice here.

Lyceum 1980 (CD2 T6-15, CD3 T1-9)

There is quite an effective broadband midrange boost here between 500 Hz and 5 kHz, and a slight treble cut. However, One For The Vine (as always, the only recording from 5/6/1980; all others are from 5/7) doesn't have the strong wow and flutter problems of the BBC Archive original in the second part, although it's clearly the same source, because the BBC also has Tommy Vance's cancellation at the end. Possibly the problem has been fixed digitally. The sound is OK, but there are some bootlegs that sound better.

Wembley 1987 (CD3 T10-11, CD4 T1-8)

It had already been speculated in the forums that this might not be the recording of the BBC live broadcast from 7/4/1987, but rather the soundtrack of the Live at Wembley Stadium DVD (which is mostly from 7/3), but this is clearly the previously unreleased BBC recording. The sound is identical to it except for nuances. A slightly stronger compression (also due to the quite loud mastering) and a slight lowering of the treble make the CD sound a bit less clear and fresh compared to the archive material.

Knebworth 1992 (CD5)

Here, too, compared to the archive material at hand, there is a somewhat too strong change in the balance between treble and bass in favor of the treble. This makes the sound a bit more transparent, but it also loses warmth. You can do it that way, but with a little more effort it would have been possible to get much more out of it.

Birmingham 1998 (CD4 T9-10)

Except for raising the level by 1.4 dB, they just didn't do anything here. It sounds exactly like the archive material.

So overall, we don't have any major adjustments. There are also often announcements to be heard. In any case, the recordings of the live concerts are relatively raw and of course do not shine with the glossy sound that you find on official live albums.

6. Conclusion

It's a nice thing that Genesis are finally giving us access to their BBC archive recordings. A box set makes sense in many ways: there are some early treasures included and complete live shows, even from the later years. Many fans will be pleased with this release as well.

However, they decided - unlike other artists - to cut the content heavily and shorten complete shows as well. Why they did not simply make a round box set with all available recordings and complete radio shows, remains a mystery. We are quite aware that not all of the before mentioned broadcasted concerts are complete shows, but nevertheless they could have released all available content. The fans would have been able to cope with duplications of different songs, especially since they would have been from different concerts and tours anyway. But now there are incomplete shows, in addition these are strangely arranged on the CDs. From the early recordings important parts have been left out and the recording from Wembley 1975 is missing completely except for Watcher Of The Skies. The BBC show from 1998 with Ray Wilson, Anthony Drennan and Nir Z. is only represented with two songs. Vinyl fans are annoyed twice because there is even less material. This could have been solved differently: Complete shows as single vinyl releases would have been an alternative.

If all the sessions and concerts used here and available from the BBC had been released unabridged, it would have been a manageable 12CD set (two CDs for the early sessions and Paris, one CD for Wembley 1975, two CDs each for Knebworth 78, Lyceum 1980, Wembley 1987 and Knebworth 1992, and another for Birmingham 1998).

The idea of the artwork is good, but little care has been taken here as well. Pictures and graphics are arranged somewhat randomly in the booklet. There are photos and logos from times when there were no BBC recordings at all, plus Genesis logos on the labels without any reference to the recording (the Trick Of The Tail lettering, for example, on the CD of the early years, on which Peter is pictured with a flower mask; or the lettering of the Shapes album on CD3 - there were no BBC recordings in 1983/1984 and on the CD there are recordings from 1980 and 1987). In addition, there are minor factual errors in the accompanying texts and the credits of the songs. So, unfortunately, we have to conclude that once again Genesis can't bring an all-around satisfying release to the market.

Author: Christian Gerhardts
BBC-archive details: Tom Morgenstern
More info is available in this Radio Show Guide (by David Dunnington)

Last update: 06 March 2023

 

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