Your favorite songs you're surprised they played live

  • Inspired by Trick of the Wuthering's thread about songs that never were played by Genesis on stage, what are some songs where you look back and think "I can't believe they played that, but I'm glad they did!"


    At the top of my list is It's Gonna Get Better. It's such a beautiful song, and it's one of my favorite songs from the Genesis album, but compared to Just A Job to Do or Taking It All Too Hard it seems like a much less obvious choice to be played live.


    White Mountain is another surprise, especially considering they apparently didn't play it until the Trick of the Tail tour.


    Honorable mention for me is the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway in its entirety. For every compelling reason for playing all of it there seems to be a strong argument against it. It's length, complexity, and the fact there are some fairly long passages that aren't particularly exciting from an audience perspective might have made it acceptable to not play the whole thing live, but I'm certainly glad they did. The album is a masterpiece but playing it all live is quite an achievement.

  • Glad to be of inspiration!


    For me, it's:


    • White Mountain (1976)
    • Fountain of Salmacis (1978)
    • Me and Sarah Jane (1981)
    • Ripples (2007)
    • Duchess (2021)


    Now, if we're talking about songs you wish they didn't play live, how the heck did Who Dunnit survive onto the Mama Tour?

  • how the heck did Who Dunnit survive onto the Mama Tour?

    I think they simply enjoyed playing it. Unlike most here I don't mind it on the album, it's nowhere near a favourite, I understand why they did it and personally I think they did worse songs but while it was interesting to see them do it live I don't think it worked well on stage and the naff 'humour' of "oh look we're wearing funny hats and goggles" and PC's over-acted performance was pretty lame. But I can imagine that amid the setlists of that time they got a buzz throwing it in there, and they never made a secret of liking that it annoyed the diehards.


    I love M&SJ but based on the 3SL version it didn't work that well live. In 07 yes I was pleasantly surprised by Ripples too, also the snippet of Duke's Travels. Getting the full SR in 82 was totally unexpected.


    At my first Genesis gig in 1980 I suppose technically I was "surprised" by everything but in particular I didn't expect the Slippernen solo to be included as a bit in its own right.

    Abandon all reason

  • Agree about Duchess on The Last Domino tour and Ripples on the 2007 tour.

    Back in NYC on the Duke tour.

    In That Quiet Earth (in full) on the IT tour.

    Inside and Out on the Wind and Wuthering tour


    There are also songs that are not favourites and I am surprised they played them live:


    All In a Mouse's Night

    Say It's Alright Joe

    Me and Virgil

    Like It or Not

  • Supper's Ready circa 1982 (we never dreamed we'd see them play SR in its entirety again!).


    The Lamb/Watcher encore (again, 1982).


    Duchess 2021 (we saw them the first show after the Chicago shows when they had dropped Duchess in favor of Misunderstanding, so we were enthralled when the drum machine for Duchess started).


    Eleventh Earl/Squonk/Firth of Fifth 1983 (the first of two old medleys they played at the show in Washington, DC).


    Keep it Dark 1983.

  • I had heard or read they were doing Supper's Ready on that tour but the encore caught me completely by surprise - one of the benefits of the pre-internet era.

    So true about the benefits of the pre-internet era. In the case of Lamb/Watcher, it wasn't just that they played that encore, it was also the surprising, jazz-rock rearrangement of the intro and outro to The Lamb.

  • "Duchess" from the latest tour and also the stripped down "Lamb" version, that I enjoyed a lot! :)


    When did they play "Like it or not"??