Published on May 27, 2005
Way back on the 10th of May,
my review for
Genesis Live went up. If you want to read my
observations about that particular work, they are there for you to
skim. Suffice it to say; I came away impressed. Now here we are,
with the last Genesis live album. The question is, has anything
carried over?
The Way We Walk Vol. 2 (The Longs) (hereafter referred to as
The Longs) is obviously Vol. 2 of a live concert. The first
volume consisted of the hits, whereas
The Longs attempts to reach out to fans of old school
Genesis with some longer tracks. Sounds like a decent approach,
trying to reach out to all of Genesis fandom with this two-pronged
attack. While I do not have a problem with that, what causes
concern is the track selection.
Raise your hand if you agree that Genesis’ best progressive
material occurred before 1974. I do, for one. But guess what, out
of the six tracks, only one contains material previous to 1983.
This is a huge problem, as the listener is left with questions
along the lines of, “What happened to ‘The Knife’, or ‘The Return
Of The Giant Hogweed'”? Rule number one to the successful live
offering; include your best songs!
That aforementioned single track containing pre-1983 material
would be the opener, “Old Medley.” Included within this medley are
“Dance on a Volcano,” “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway,” and “The
Musical.” One can also hear fairly large chunks of “Follow You,
Follow Me,” and “That’s All.” Now let’s be honest, each of these
sections is performed well; I wasn’t crying for the original
versions. However, what really gets me angry is the fact that
apparently this version of Genesis didn’t think the audience would
have the attention span for one 20-minute long track. No, instead
they break it up, for no decent artistic reason. I mean this album
is supposed to be “the long tracks,” so why the hell am I hearing
“Follow You Follow Me”?
* Phew * rant over. Okay, on to the rest of
The Longs. After the opening track, we are presented with
four consecutive plus ten minute tracks. “Driving The Last Spike,”
spotlights the band letting loose a little bit, and injecting some
energy into what I thought was somewhat of a lifeless track on
We Can’t Dance. “Domino,” a track off of
Invisible Touch that was to me one of the weaker efforts off
that record, has more of a kick to it here. I tell you, there is
nothing like hearing real drums as opposed to triggers. Collins is
no slouch in the drumming department as evidenced by the last
track, “Drum Duet.” It is relatively short, something always
beneficial for drum solos, and shuffles through various sorts of
beats as the tracks intensity grows and grows.
“Fading Lights” is supposed to some ethereal, mystical track I
think, but it fell through. It was a little too slow, a little too
ethereal. Luckily, the second to last track is a keeper. “Home By
The Sea” is easily the best performance the band turns in. A funky
beat, courtesy of Collins and Rutherford starts things off, and
just gets better from there. We get to hear some wild synth playing
from Mr. Tony Banks, and thunderous pounding from Mr. Collins.
Moments like these really convince you that Genesis, even at this
point in their careers, could still rock.
Ok, I like most of the performances on this disc; these live
offerings are superior to their studio counterparts. However, my
problem is I’m not a big fan of these tracks to begin with. Again,
this is a case of what if, this version of Genesis I think could
have pulled off some great early Genesis numbers, but that’s not
what you get to hear on
The Longs.