12 dicembre 1974 - Cleveland Ohio

[Rael Matrix]

SCENE e' un settimanale locale di Cleveland, in USA.
Da un'intervista a Phil, dal titolo: GENESIS BLENDS VISUAL & MUSICAL,
si parla dell'Lamb e di amplificatori che vanno a fuoco,

Drummer Phil Collins discusses lambs & burning amps
by Cliff Michalski

In the realm of 'progressive' rock music, one of the groups most often
mentioned among the best in that field is England's Genesis. The bank
have achieved that rare honor of being renowned for both their music and
their live presentations. In their six -year/seven - album career,
high-quality musicianship has enabled them to create music dealing with
grand fantasies and comic book-type distortions of real people and places,
as well as such realities as war between London protection gangs and the
life of a New York ghetto kid.
On stage, Genesis turn the conventional rock concert into
something closer to a theatrical presentation. Lights, props and
various costumes worn by vocalist Peter Gabriel add a new dimension
to their songs, as well as earning the group a reputation for one of
the best live shows in the rock world.
Currently, the band is attempting to break out of a cult
following in the U.S. with their most ambitious musical project yet,
the two-record set, THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY. While in town
recently, drummer Phil Collins talked to the SCENE on a variety of
subjects related to the group.

SCENE:
Your visuals seemed to be lower-keyed this show, not as
sensational as those I've seen for the band before.

COLLINS:
Yes. Myself, I've alway felt that Peter could express the lyrics
of our songs just through his body movements, without any of the
external things.

S: It seems like Genesis has always attempted to coordinate their visuals
with what's happening in whatever they're playing.

C: Right, The West Coast light shows in the 60's were more of a thing of
flashing random things on the screen for a general atmosphere. We've
attempted to stay away from that the last couple of years.

S: You used to have a light show like that?

C: Of sorts. It got to the stage where people would show me pictures
of our gigs and I couldn't distinguish any one of us on stage; it was
all lights and smoke. We knew we had to get away from that.

S: I understand one of your sets was declared unsafe in England a
couple of years agao.

C: Yes, it was made of inflatable plastic and would be blown up
behind us. It was very convenient, but the fire marshals declared it
a hazard, and we had to drop it. A bit before that, we almost did
burn ourselves down on stage.

S: What happened?

C: It was at a gig in Italy before 15,000 people. We were
playing "The Knife" for an encore when I saw smoke. I thought it was
one of our special effects at first, but then I turn and see Mike's
(Rutherford, Genesis bassist) amp on fire. The crowd was pushed up
right against the stage and it was potentially a very dangerous
situation, but fire extingishers were located, and eventually got it
out.

S: Who works with the band on their current visuals?

C: For the first time we've hired an outsider to design and operate them.
In the past it was either roadies or friends of ours doing the show;
this way it's more professional.

S: The band doesn't play much of their old material in the current show

C: Well, it's like we've been playing the same material on our last two
or three tours and we felt the audiences wanted something new.

S: The main complaint about your current show seemed to be the lack of
old numbers in it.

C: It seems as though a third of our audience wants us to play old stuff,
a third wants us to play new stuff, and the other third wants us to
play all night. But, in fact, we were ready to do "Watcher Of
the Skies" for an encore last night (the 25th of November), but Mike
told a stage hand to turn off the hall lights and he thought he said
turn them on. That killed the clapping and it would have been awkward
to go back on again.

S: Is THE LAMB ... something the group's always had in mind to do?

C: We've done story-type things before, like "Supper's Ready" a couple
of years ago, but this didn't materalize until we started writing the
music and discovered we had a lot of material.

S: The band writes the music first?

C: Yes, we had a general idea of its story line beforehand. This
method seems to work best for us. There were fewer instrumentals on
this recored than there were on SELLING ENGLAND.... because there was
a story we wanted to get across this time.

S: It's an interesting story line.

C: Peter wrote most of it. We were searching for a name for its lead
character - which would be somewhat neutral, without any racial
connotations - and we decided upon Rael. We didn't know until later
that the Who had done a song by the same name.

S: What did Eno contribute to the album?

C: Synthesized voices. He would run Peter's voice through his
equipment on some of the songs, such as 'Grand Parade Of Lifeless
Packaging.' He did the same thing on some guitar parts as well.

S: Was ther any particula message intended in the way THE
LAMB... ended?

C: No, it was written as a very open-ended type of thing; it really
means whatever the listener thinks it does.