40 yars ago today, GENESIS have released their third live album "Three Sides Live".
Did you buy the album back in 1982? What are your thoughts today?
This is our review: https://bit.ly/3amMAMq
GENESIS - 40th anniversary of "Three Sides Live"
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I bought it and played it nearly to death. I absolutely loved (and still love) this album. The production was so much crisper than Seconds Out.
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I bought it and played it nearly to death. I absolutely loved (and still love) this album. The production was so much crisper than Seconds Out.
For me everything was better than SO. Their live performance was superior by this stage and the album in both its sound and even packaging was an improvement.
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For me everything was better than SO.
except SO had Supper's Ready on it! 😉
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The fourth live side of the UK version was the icing on the cake.
Bill Bruford's drum sound once again hit the spot
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except SO had Supper's Ready on it! 😉
Ah, my only regret about TSL. If they had waited to release it until after the Encore Tour in 1982 SR could have been recorded from that tour and put on the album.
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it's still bizzar that because they released this live album, they chose to ignore Mama & Invisible Touch live albums.
I never understood the logic, that these two eras were dismissed & still are.
I'm certain live albums especially of IT in 1988 would have been huge seller for them, to help bridge a 5 year gap between albums
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A great version of Abacab, Dodo, Duchess, One for the Vine and Fountain of Samlacis!
For me Seconds Out, hasn't a sound Bombastic.
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except SO had Supper's Ready on it! 😉
Yes - but mixed and over-produced to a shiny death. Anyone who's heard the 82 rendition can't possibly listen to the SO version in the same light (as MoonlitKnight touches on above)
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it's still bizzar that because they released this live album, they chose to ignore Mama & Invisible Touch live albums.
I never understood the logic, that these two eras were dismissed & still are.
I'm certain live albums especially of IT in 1988 would have been huge seller for them, to help bridge a 5 year gap between albums
What do you mean "dismissed"? They released videos of both those tours; how is that dismissing them? "& still are" - do you actually know anything about this band?????
This was a time when live albums were still relatively speaking a rarity. Plus it's clear to any dedicated Genesis fan, they were a band who'd only release a live album if they felt it had something new to offer and at a milestone in their career. The Mama and IT tours would obviously not in their minds have met that requirement.
They clearly felt they didn't need a "huge seller to bridge a 5 year gap". Releasing an album, even a live one, isn't some casual thing. It's a major operation involving a whole load of commercial, technical and promo machinery. At that time they'd have had no time or appetite for it.
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it's still bizzar that because they released this live album, they chose to ignore Mama & Invisible Touch live albums.
I never understood the logic, that these two eras were dismissed & still are.
I'm certain live albums especially of IT in 1988 would have been huge seller for them, to help bridge a 5 year gap between albums
Are those really two eras? Every album is an era? In that case, most every "era" was ignored as far as live albums.
They released 4 live albums during their career, not counting the boxed sets. It's not like they were releasing live albums of every tour. Those two albums are pretty well represented on The Way We Walk discs.
As far as SO vs 3SL, the playing is better on 3SL, the sound is better on 3SL, but I listen to SO much more often, because the selection of songs on it is much better (for my tastes).
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Yes - but mixed and over-produced to a shiny death. Anyone who's heard the 82 rendition can't possibly listen to the SO version in the same light (as MoonlitKnight touches on above)
Yep. Several times a week I listen to some version or another of SR from the 1982 tour on YouTube. Yesterday it was Toronto. The energy and force put the SO version to shame.
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Just had a sublime time listening to Three Sides Live while on my riding mower cutting our acre of land. Oh yes, you can tell me by the I walk 😎 (yes I’m aware IKWIL is not on Three Sides Live but couldn’t resist the reference lol).
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What do you mean "dismissed"? They released videos of both those tours; how is that dismissing them? "& still are" - do you actually know anything about this band?????
This was a time when live albums were still relatively speaking a rarity. Plus it's clear to any dedicated Genesis fan, they were a band who'd only release a live album if they felt it had something new to offer and at a milestone in their career. The Mama and IT tours would obviously not in their minds have met that requirement.
They clearly felt they didn't need a "huge seller to bridge a 5 year gap". Releasing an album, even a live one, isn't some casual thing. It's a major operation involving a whole load of commercial, technical and promo machinery. At that time they'd have had no time or appetite for it.
It was their peak as a Live band & their biggest commercial period.
Most bands would have cashed in & videos were (like with Mama Tour) not full.
Just a missed opportunity, but they are readily available now, so not a big deal anymore.
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Most bands would have cashed in & videos were (like with Mama Tour) not full.
Just a missed opportunity, but they are readily available now, so not a big deal anymore.
Even if your assertion were provably true, they're not 'most bands'. "Why don't they do what these other bands do" is never valid.
As to "not a big deal anymore" - again, you're showing your ignorance of how the industry works and not considering how Genesis demonstrably tend to think.
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Bought it then, still love it.
I remember carrying it at school and another Genesis fan came over and started having a go at me, saying that 3SL was rubbish, and not even a proper Genesis album, compared to SO.
Anyway, I still like it a lot. Some great versions on there.
It was only relatively recently I discovered I'm actually on it, as I was at the NEC on 23/12/81, where much of it was recorded (apparently).
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I bought both the US and UK versions when the album was new, although the extra live side on the latter didn't do much for me. As for the actual three-side live album, I've always had a mixed opinion of it, and for a long time I only listened to a few selected tracks from it. "Abacab" was always a favorite though.
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It's a very good live album. I first got a copy about a year after it was released and I still listen to the In The Cage medley (sublime drumming in there), plus side 1 and very occasionally side 4 (although I'm not fan of One For The Vine, even though this version is superbly played). As for side 2, the first two tracks are great, but Me and Sarah Jane is boring (to my ears) and Follow You Follow Me might be a popular song but I don't think it offers anything here (or to most live shows) and I'd rather it had followed the proverbial lemmings off a cliff. There were other much better performed songs on the Abacab tour which lost out to those two. Similarly, I appreciate the business reasons for including Misunderstanding, but to me the real misunderstanding here is in the band's belief that a fan would actually listen to it. I always dropped the needle where the applause gave way to "I've got sunshine in my stomach".
It's all a question of individual taste though, and with a band which lasted this long and with such variation in its back catalogue, inevitably there will be wildly different opinions. However, I don't see how Three Sides Live can even hold a candle to Seconds Out. Admittedly, Seconds Out was the album which got me fixated on Genesis (I first heard it in 1981, I think) and so I'm particularly fond of it, but whether it's viewed as over-polished or not, sides 2, 3 and 4 are absolutely epic. Suppers Ready has the grace and beauty that this song needs, whereas in the Gabriel era it could be clunky at times and in the Encore era it was more of a rock performance than an attempt to take the listener on a journey. Cinema Show is full of energy, an absolute belter, and I don't think this rendition of Dance of a Volcano / Los Endos was ever bettered.
It's a shame the Lyceum show was never made a commercial release but the available bootleg versions (particularly TM) make it as good as.
I share the views of others that it's a pity they didn't delay the release of 3SL until after the Encore tour. Some of those performances were incredible and (notwithstanding my comments above) it was brilliant to hear them dusting off Suppers Ready again. To my ears, that setlist was one of the strongest they ever played.
Anyway, I'd rank 3SL at number 2 for their live albums.
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3SL was my first introduction to their 70s material--hearing the Cage medley was an incredible experience--I didn't know what I was hearing, it was so different from anything I'd heard. I was particularly fond of the Cinema Show section because it sounded so uplifting and powerful. I knew I had to dive deeper into the Genesis catalog at this point and what an adventure that was/has been/is.
I'm guessing the Old Medley from TWWW may have had a similar effect on others to pique their interest in the old material.
In short, it's magic
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3SL was my first introduction to their 70s material--hearing the Cage medley was an incredible experience--I didn't know what I was hearing, it was so different from anything I'd heard. I was particularly fond of the Cinema Show section because it sounded so uplifting and powerful. I knew I had to dive deeper into the Genesis catalog at this point and what an adventure that was/has been/is.
I'm guessing the Old Medley from TWWW may have had a similar effect on others to pique their interest in the old material.
In short, it's magic
For me the Old Medley from The Way We Walk was good, it didn’t match the raw energy of the In the Cage medley. Also I found it difficult to get past hearing The Musical Box as a section in the middle of a medley. That song has probably my most favorite ending of any Genesis song, and its drama and power were at least partially sapped by segueing right into FoF rather than being the actual end of the medley.
