| The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Genesis | ||||
| Released | 18 November 1974 | |||
| Recorded | August–October 1974 at Island Mobile Studios, Wales |
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| Genre | Progressive rock | |||
| Length | 94:22 | |||
| Label | Charisma, Atco | |||
| Producer | John Burns, Genesis | |||
| Genesis chronology | ||||
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The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is a double concept album recorded and released in 1974 by the British rock band Genesis. It was their sixth studio album and the last album by the group to feature the involvement of lead singer Peter Gabriel.
Contents |
The album tells the surreal story of a half Puerto Rican juvenile delinquent named Rael living in New York City, who is swept underground to face bizarre creatures and nightmarish dangers in order to rescue his brother John.[1] Several of the story's occurrences and places were derived from Peter Gabriel's dreams, and the protagonist's name is a play on his surname. In the 1991 documentary "Genesis: A History", Phil Collins remarked, "It's about a 'split personality' (referring to the live performance of "it."). In this context, Rael would believe he is looking for John but is actually looking for a missing part of himself. The individual songs also make satirical allusions to everything from mythology to the sexual revolution to advertising and consumerism. The title track, as well as "The Carpet Crawlers" and "In the Cage", are live favourites for the band. Both "In the Cage" and "The Carpet Crawlers" were included in 2007's Turn it On Again: The Tour, with "The Carpet Crawlers" played as the closing number.
Peter Gabriel was absent from the album's writing and rehearsal sessions due to personal problems – his first wife was having difficulties with her first pregnancy.[2] For this reason, most of the music was written by Tony Banks, Phil Collins, and Mike Rutherford, with some contribution from Steve Hackett and, at first, virtually none from Gabriel. Gabriel, for his part, insisted on writing the story and all the lyrics himself, which caused friction, in particular because Rutherford had originally suggested another project for the band – an album based on Antoine de Saint Exupéry's The Little Prince. Banks and Rutherford did write the words for "The Light Dies Down on Broadway", as Gabriel could not come up with a linking piece between "Ravine" and "Riding the Scree". In addition, when Gabriel put lyrics to a piece of music written by one of the other band members (such as Banks' "The Lamia" and Hackett's "Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist") the composer would often insist on adjusting the lyrics to better fit the music, an action Gabriel did not take kindly to.
Gabriel's then-wife Jill noted that he wrote the main melody for "The Carpet Crawlers", of which he is especially proud.[3] Tracks like "Anyway" and "Lilywhite Lilith" were developed from earlier unused 1969 compositions by the band ("Frustration" and "The Light" respectively) which were likely to have been group efforts.
During the album's pre-production, Gabriel was contacted by filmmaker William Friedkin (at the time enjoying success with The Exorcist), about a possible film project after Friedkin read Gabriel's short story on the sleeve of the Genesis Live album.[1] Despite his bandmates' disapproval, Gabriel left them to work on some early script drafts. However, the project came to nothing (Friedkin instead working with Tangerine Dream to score his next film, Sorcerer), and Gabriel returned to the band.
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway met with mixed reviews, and reached number 10 in the UK, while nearly cracking the U.S. Top 40, reaching number 41 and eventually going Gold. The band went on a world tour upon its release, performing the album in its entirety 102 times. The Lamb Tour was slated to begin on 29 October 1974, but due to an injury to Steve Hackett's hand, the tour was postponed until 12 November.[3] Opening night for the tour commenced at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, Illinois on 20 November 1974. The final show on The Lamb tour was 22 May 1975 at the Palais des Sports in Besançon, France. (The final show of the tour had been scheduled for 27 May 1975 at the Palais des Sports in Paris, but was cancelled due to poor ticket sales, as was the penultimate date of 24 May 1975 at the Parc des Expositions in Toulouse.) Early into the tour, Gabriel decided he would leave Genesis, although he would finish the tour amicably with the band and not go public until August 1975.
The tour saw the summation of Peter Gabriel's interest in theatrical presentation, masks and costumes, which had initially been something to hide his shy persona behind and to give the band a distinctiveness. In addition to Gabriel's theatrics, three screens above the band showed slides to accompany the story.
For the first half of the show, Gabriel dressed as Rael in leather jacket, T-shirt and jeans, while relying on lighting and dramatic expression without the use of props or costumes. In the second half, the costumes and other visuals became much more elaborate. During "The Lamia", for instance, Gabriel was surrounded by a spinning cone-like structure decorated with images of snakes. For the last verse of the song, the cone would collapse to reveal Gabriel wearing a body suit that glowed under the stage's black lights. However, the most notorious of Gabriel's costumes was the Slipperman, a naked monster with inflatable genitalia and covered in lumps, who emerged onto the stage by crawling out of a phallus-shaped tube. At the intro to the final song "It," a huge explosion set off twin strobes, and the audience was faced with both Gabriel and a dummy dressed identically, clueless as to which was real. "It" also featured an alternate ending with Gabriel vanishing from the stage in a flash of light and a puff of smoke.
Although these visuals were, as in past concerts, meant to enhance the experience, the rest of the band became frustrated with the press focusing only on the theatrical side of the show and not the musicianship. Another problem for the band was that many fans reacted as if Gabriel was the star and the rest of the group merely his backing band. Collins stated in Hugh Fielder's 1984 book, The Book Of Genesis, that backstage after a Lamb concert, "people would steam straight past Tony, Mike, Steve and I, go straight up to Peter and say, 'You're fantastic, we really enjoyed the show.' It was becoming a one-man show to the audience."
The show would feature some of the band's most famous instruments, including Mike Rutherford's double neck that consisted of a MicroFret six string bass and a Rickenbacker 12 string guitar, and Phil Collins' largest drum kit with Genesis featuring four timbales, a red seven-piece Ludwig kit (and later a natural finish Premier kit in same configuration,) a Fibes Crystallite snare, a set of five red temple blocks, a vibraphone, a set of orchestral bells, tubular bells, and a set of tuned tambourines (which can be heard on "In the Cage.")
The tour was fraught with other difficulties. According to Tony Banks, the slides which accompanied the music never worked well and only came close to working perfectly on four or five occasions. Gabriel often had difficulty getting a microphone near enough to his mouth to be heard in some of his costumes, especially the Slipperman. And, during a performance of "It" in one concert in Oslo, a stage manager's error resulted in an explosion so intense that it caused the band to stop playing, fearing for their safety.
At the final Lamb concert in Besançon, roadie Geoff Banks, just for a joke and without telling the band beforehand, put on the dummy's leather jacket and – wearing nothing else – replaced the Gabriel dummy on stage for the intro to "It."
Genesis never had any of their Lamb concerts filmed in their entirety, although several pieces from the show were filmed, including some bootleg footage taken by audience members. The 5.1 DVD edition of The Lamb, released in November 2008, features a visual "reconstruction" of the concert, utilising all of the band's original slides from the show, some bootleg footage, and photographs. There is also a nearly-complete audio recording of the performance from 24 January 1975 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles that is available on the box set, Genesis Archive 1967–75, although it has some re-recorded vocals and guitar parts by Gabriel and Hackett, as both men were dissatisfied with their performances on the original concert recording (as well as technical flaws; e.g. Gabriel's vocals at one point being muffled by the Slipperman costume). In addition, for reasons never properly explained, the band used a re-mixed studio version of "it", also with re-recorded vocals by Gabriel, instead of the live version of the song. Contrary to Tony Banks' assertion in the accompanying booklet to the Genesis Archive, the tape did not run out; the live version of "it" exists on the King Biscuit Flower Hour broadcast of the Shrine concert.
In 2004, Genesis considered reuniting for a brief reunion tour of "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway." All five former band members met in November 2004 to discuss the possible tour, but ultimately Gabriel bowed out due to his solo commitments. In 2007, Banks, Collins, and Rutherford went ahead with the Genesis reunion tour without Gabriel and Hackett, playing only a couple of "Lamb" songs during the show, the standard live numbers "In the Cage" and "Carpet Crawlers." The trio all stated that they still hoped a reunion tour of "The Lamb" with Gabriel and Hackett would still happen at some point. In March 2011, Collins announced his retirement from the music industry, closing off any possibility of a "Lamb" reunion tour.[4][5]
CD disc one
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CD disc two
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plus
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [7] |
| BBC Music | (very favourable)[8] |
| Robert Christgau | (B-)[9] |
In the Q & Mojo Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album came No.14 in its list of "40 Cosmic Rock Albums".[10]
The album came 9th in Uncut's "10 best concept albums", where it was described as an "impressionistic, intense album" and "pure theatre (in a good way) and still Gabriel's best work".[11]
A digitally remastered version of "The Lamb" was released on CD in 1994 on Virgin in Europe and on Atlantic in the US and Canada. The remastered CD's booklet features the lyrics and story that came with the original vinyl, though some of the inner sleeve artwork was not reproduced.
A re-recorded version of the song "The Carpet Crawlers," titled "The Carpet Crawlers 1999", was released on the compilation album Turn It on Again: The Hits, with both Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins contributing lead vocals.
A SACD / DVD double disc set (including new 5.1 and Stereo mixes) was released in November 2008.
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1974 | UK album chart | 10 |
| Billboard Pop Albums | 41 |
| Organisation | Level | Date |
|---|---|---|
| BPI – UK | Gold | 1 February 1975 |
| CRIA – Canada | Gold | 1 May 1978 |
| RIAA – U.S. | Gold | 20 April 1990 |