On New Year’s day in 1977, it was a snowy one, as was 1978, a year I spent walking over three miles from pub to pub as the snow fell. In 1977, Genesis played at Newcastle City Hall on the Wind And Wuthering tour. I didn’t see that gig though I know plenty who did. I wasn’t that big a fan of the band, with my tastes lying in heavier, less pastoral and sometimes jazzier directions, though I’d bought I Know What I Like …I think I was too young to appreciate their sophistication.
It’s funny to think that they were less than 8 years old as a band in 1977. Which even so, seemed like a bloody long time when you’re not even 16. Little did I know, the band would play such a crucial part of my life in three years time on the Duke tour.
If you remember, unlike now, tickets went on sale for gigs two, maybe three months ahead of the show, not a full year as they do now, and Genesis tickets went on sale in February-ish for two shows in April. Now today it just means hitting refresh a thousand times when there is high ticket demand, but back then, things were more prosaic and it involved sleeping on the streets outside the box office and I vividly remember the snaking queue of hairy folk in afghans and sleeping bags for at least 2 cold, wintry days to get tickets. Little did I know Dawn was part of that queue and somehow also got tickets for the Carlisle gig 48 hours later on 1st May, one day before we met, when she was still wearing the t-shirt.
I still wasn’t any more enamoured with the band than I had been in 1977 but keen to impress, I did that most male of things, I bought the Duke album to ’prove’ I was on the same wavelength … and I was surprised how much I liked it. So much so I went back and trawled through their back catalogue, which I was half familiar with anyway and maybe it was being 18 now but I loved it all. The lack of heaviness and that pastoral quality now seemed to be the thing I liked.
Of course it was a pivotal time for me and for the band who became incredibly commercial and big-selling. But for all their ‘pop’ commerciality, the albums always retained their progressive element on songs like Home By The Sea and The Last Domino. Even the 12” of Tonight, Tonight, Tonight is a masterfully extended and highly unusual piece of music. And although they had significantly changed their approach, it was just different and had added new colours in their palette. As is often the case, if they had taken a different name, maybe they’d have avoided some of the former fan criticism but there was no way they’d have been making a 1986 version of Selling England … and nobody should have expected them to.
With sales of between up to 150 million records, you can’t argue with their success. But which do you think is the best selling? It’s the Invisible Touch with sales of 7 million. The album spent three weeks at No. 1 in the UK and reached No. 3 in the US. The album's five singles – "Invisible Touch", "Throwing It All Away", "Land of Confusion", "In Too Deep" and "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" – entered the top five on the US singles chart between 1986 and 1987 with "Invisible Touch" topping the chart for one week. Genesis became the first group and foreign act to achieve this.
For all they looked like 3 estate agents or partners in a law firm at the time, rather than best-selling rockers, since 1980, I’ve found their music irresistible and consistently satisfying in a way I could never have imagined in that snowy New Year of 1977.
Genesis - Irresistible and consistently satisfying
