Le FermeWoluwe, St Lambert
Belgium
March 7, 1971
Remastered as Hogweed #12
Overall Rating:
A terrible sounding audience recording, but a must-have for any collector of Genesis live shows. Not only was Le Ferme Genesis' first overseas gig, but it is the earliest known live recording of the band. And it contains the only known recording of a song called "The Light" (see the raw notes below). Hogweed productions has taken great pains to make this CD listenable. They have also provided extensive artwork and liner notes which are available at http://www.genesis-movement.org/ . Earns an extra half Albert for historical significance.
Sound: * *
A poor audience recording barely salvaged as a Hogweed production.
Mix: * *
The band have said that they didn't have the best equipment at this time. It shows here somewhat, but it could have been much worse.
Performance: * * *
Peter is a bit intimidated by the crowd. Some of the performances are loose and threaten to fall apart. Still the band nails Stagnation, an early version of The Musical Box and The Knife.
Raw Notes:
1. Announcer's Intro / Peter's Intro - Peter seems very nervous and speaking some French. Introduces a song about a man who eats his fingernails.
2. Happy The Man - Loose, slow performance. Strange choice to open the show.
3. Cheese and Onions Crisps Man Story - A song for people with bad breath. Man laughs.
4. Stagnation - Taper fidgets with recorder in the early seconds. Phil follows Mayhew's original drumming pretty closely here in the beginning. Broody instrumental churns along nicely. Peter's tambourine is louder than the drums. Nice performance. No backing vocals apparent during "Then let us drink" section.
5. Intro - One of those long, embarassed pauses Peter remembers.
6. The Light - The only known recording of this song. The main musical idea would later become Lilywhite Lilith. Because of the poor sound, I've never been able to make out most of the lyrics. Different sections don't mesh well, but some the individual sections are remarkable. The band isn't quite able yet to pull off something this elaborate. But it's a fascinating study in the direction they were heading. The song itself is attributed to Phil, but I'm betting Tony had a huge hand in the instrumental passages. The audience likes it.
7. Another embarrassed pause. Audience chats. Peter laughs nervously a couple of times.
8. Twilight Alehouse - I believe this performance pre-dates the studio version. Vocals get buried under the organ. Band builds a fairly good level of intensity.
9. Story - More pause.
10. The Musical Box - First minute cut. Somewhat different arrangement from the one that would end up on Nursery Cryme a few months later. Things really begin to come together here. I mentioned above that the band wasn't quite ready to pull off these elaborate arrangements, but they're getting damned close here.
11. Intro - The hiss gets bad here during Peter's French intro. Refers to Trespass as "the album". The band had already written off FGTR.
12. The Knife - Peter is already tweaking the lyrics to the second verse here on the earliest live recording. He must have been unhappy with the words. Surprisingly powerful early performance of this one, especially given that Steve had only been with the band for a couple of months.
13. Calls for Encore / Intro - Another pause.
14. Going Out to Get You - A leftover track from Trespass. Performed with good intensity, especially Tony's organ. The band is very comfortable with these last couple of songs. Crowd cheers! Merci.
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