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Liner Notes: Down To Three….

After their massive 1977 world tour to promote the 'Wind And Wuthering' album, Genesis were understandably tired. Yet, after an all too short vacation, a huge task awaited them - sorting through hours of tapes recorded on their two latest tours to compile a keenly anticipated double live album. It was during the mixing of this new album that Steve Hackett elected to leave the band. Having grown increasingly unhappy during the previous year, Steve had struggled long and hard over this important decision, as he recalls: “I felt that Genesis was no longer a sane environment for me to work in. Working on my first solo album and seeing it become such a big success had given me a lot of confidence in my own writing ability and I was coming up with more and more new material all the time, most of which didn't seem to strike a chord with my band mates. It was increasingly hard for me to get any of my stuff onto Genesis records. I argued with this decision for months until I saw no solution other than to leave. We were mixing the live album at the time and I just couldn't face coming in one morning. I knew that if I saw them face to face, they would have persuaded me to stay!”

The news was out: “Steve Hackett Quits Genesis”, announced the cover of Melody Maker. What now? After surviving the departure of their charismatic singer Peter Gabriel two years earlier, the band was suddenly down to a trio. With the newly released live album 'Seconds Out' gathering rave reviews the world over, Tony, Mike and Phil had no hesitation in deciding that Genesis would carry on, and once again they looked within their ranks for a replacement. Mike Rutherford would now assume both bass and lead guitar duties on record while a guest musician would be brought in to fill the gaps on stage. Through their friend Alfonso Johnson, Genesis were introduced to another American musician, guitarist/bass guitarist Daryl Stuermer who had played with the Jean-Luc Ponty Band for a time and was known to be an excellent musician. Stuermer recalls his audition for Genesis: “I met Mike and we played along to 'Squonk' and 'Down And Out'. We just did these two songs and Mike said, 'I think that will be enough', and I thought to myself, 'Is he saying that because he doesn't like my playing or because he knows how good I can play?'” Needless to say he did make a good impression, because Daryl would hold the post of guest guitarist with Genesis for 14 years!

The new album, 'And Then There Were Three', in March 1978 was warmly received by fans but what the band themselves could not have anticipated was the instant-hit status that 'Follow You, Follow Me' would receive upon its release as a single. In many parts of the world, the song became a Top 10 hit overnight. Genesis were back, seemingly more popular than ever and much in demand for concert appearances. Having retained the services of the previous tour's guest drummer Chester Thompson, and now with guest guitarist Daryl Stuermer, the band embarked on the biggest tour of their career. The mammoth journey would include three separate tours of the US, an extensive European jaunt and the band's inaugural visit to Japan which brought the epic trek to an eventful close. The stage set and lighting rig would also be one that fans would remember for years to come. Along with the dazzling laser beams and aircraft landing lights, there was now an amazing set of six giant computerized rotating mirrors installed above the musicians, reflecting beams of light in ever changing directions (the ancestors of Vari-Lights?). They provided some of the most staggering visual effects ever seen on a rock stage.

The set list that Genesis chose for the tour was a very special and varied one as well. They had decided to remove the seminal 'Supper's Ready' (although they did rehearse the second part of the song and played it only once as an encore on this tour), so the extra 25 minutes afforded them the opportunity to reintroduce a few golden oldies into the set, notably 'The Fountain Of Salmacis' and 'In The Cage', which had been absent since 1972 and 1975 respectively. But 'Ripples' was the surprise inclusion of the tour. This song, though one of the most popular on the album 'A Trick Of The Tail', had never been performed live before and it came as a very fresh and pleasant addition to the set. As the tour progressed, however, a few songs would be dropped, including, sadly, 'Salmacis' and 'Down And Out'. These songs, along with another new one, 'Burning Rope', would never be played again on subsequent tours.

We at PRRP are very glad to bring you this recently unearthed recording of a complete early 1978 tour show. This was the last Genesis tour of the seventies, the last ever that would feature a genuine mellotron on stage and some truly classic Genesis numbers. Enjoy!

The Villain

Notes From the Re-Master

This project began with Master cassette tapes which were sent to PRRP. There were two of them, holding the complete show. The tapes were made using a Sony TCD5 and Sennheiser MKH404's. The tapes were initially digitized at 44.1 kHz sampling rate and 32-bit resolution. All remastering was performed on this initial digitized source. Once the remastering was complete, the show sources were patched together, tracked and split into the 2CD format. The final step was to convert the sound files into the standard 16-bit format for CD Burning.

During the initial review it was clear that the show, though great, had a speed problem. Detailed analysis consisted of comparing the runtimes of each song with standard, commercial, live sources. When this was done, a clearly identifiable tape speed problem was identified and corrected.

Lots of individual clicks and pops were found and needed removal. Some were cleaned with standard routines but many required manual removal. Next, the booming hall acoustics provided quite a challenge. Dynamic tonality adjustment improved the clarity of quite moments such as the dialogue but allowed the atmosphere to be appreciated during the driving song segments. Hiss and other noises were also reduced to improve clarity of the recording. The dynamics were then adjusted to optimize the musical emphasis that was sometimes stunted by the large venue.

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