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Liner Notes: The River Of Constant Change

The liner notes for PRRPGS 013 stated that “…no complete recordings of the last two shows on May 6^th (1974) are known to exist”, therefore making the May 4^th concert the last known complete recorded performance of a 'Selling England By The Pound' show. Recently, however, a complete recording of the late show from May 6^th has finally emerged from the shadows and now, at last, we can hear in full the final concert from this groundbreaking tour. Since there were several bumps and bruises in need of repair, PRRP thought this historic recording would be a worthy addition to its ever growing list of remastered releases.

On May 2^nd 1974, Genesis performed two sets in one night in Toronto, Canada. They then travelled to New York City to fulfil their last commitment of the 'Selling England' tour, a three-night stay at the famed Academy Of Music, on May 4^th, 5^th and 6^th. Despite being plagued by technical difficulties, they turned in a fine performance on May 4^th, only to discover the next day that six of their guitars had been stolen. Since there was no way for replacements to be secured in time for the second night's concert, it was decided that it would have to be postponed until the following evening, meaning that Genesis would then play two sets on May 6^th, their second such commitment in five days.

These, then, were the fraught circumstances leading up to the final performance of the 'Selling England By The Pound' tour. After the customary opening number, 'Watcher Of The Skies', Peter Gabriel explained to the audience the reasons behind the band's failure to perform the night before: “Contrary to public opinion, we were not taking the night off to watch the elephants mating at the zoo. What actually happened was some thoughtful person relieved us of six guitars last night…the night before…including the double-neck guitar over here, which removed the possibility of Michael (Rutherford) playing on a large number of our numbers. This thoughtful person, however, offered the guitars back to us, for some small sum of money, and now we are playing tonight but we apologise for the inconvenience.”

Despite the band's undoubted frustrations at having to buy back their own equipment, they played an incredible show. Even Peter Gabriel's frequent lyrical memory lapses in 'Firth Of Fifth' couldn't detract from the quality of the performance. In terms of sound quality, this recording is slightly inferior to May 4^th but the band appeared much more confident for this last show, technical hiccups being thankfully minimal on the night; sadly a rare occurrence on this amazing tour.

This final concert of the 'Selling England By The Pound' tour marked the end of a significant era for Genesis. Never again would Britannia, the lawn mowing Jacob and the nylon-masked gang leader walk the Genesis stage (though the dancing flower and old man would resurface, in slightly amended form, eight years later at the 'Six Of The Best' reunion show in 1982). For their next project, Genesis were about to explore new, harder territories from which old English nursery rhymes and fairy tales would be excluded, but on this final night in New York, the twisted fairytale world of Genesis was still in full force. In spite of extremely tight budget restrictions and still being in heavy financial turmoil at the time, the band had succeeded in creating what many now consider to be one of the most fantastic live shows in rock history. North American audiences were only beginning to fall under the spell of Genesis and not even the most dedicated fan could have predicted what was to come next.

On his first visit to New York City in 1972, Peter Gabriel had felt something special which would ultimately lead to the dark and complex story that engulfed the whole of the band's next album, 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway'. When Genesis returned to the Academy Of Music, a mere seven months later in December 1974, it would be with their remarkable new double album and completely new stage show. But that's a story for another time…

Bob The Nob

Notes From the Re-Master

This project began with the first generation source for this show that recently became available. The whole show is here with only small patches needed to fill in brief missing sections. Overall, the quality of this recording is very good with “AKG D1000E'S SONY TC-152” being listed as the recording equipment.

As with most recordings from this era, tape noise such as clicks, pops and hiss needed to be reduced and repaired. There were other noises clearly present on this recording. For example, it sounds like there was a photographer very close to the taper. Camera clicks seem to be heard during quiet sections of the music but since they were part of the recording and not a recording artefact, they were left in the remaster. The clinking of glasses was also heard, and left in.

Tonality also needed adjustment. Both static and dynamic filters were used to correct for the tone balance captured by the microphones. There were periods when Mike Rutherford's bass was quite heavy but did not distort. Those sections were left unaltered. The remainder of the adjustment just smoothes out the excesses found. In particular there were resonance frequencies that needed attenuation which were likely accentuated by the venue acoustics. Speed correction was also needed to fix end-of-tape speed errors. Dynamics were adjusted to compensate for the recording characteristics of the microphones and then patches were used to repair missing and damaged sections. Finally, the show was re-tracked using standard sources as a reference.

PRRP Staff

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