Monday, December 31, 2018

Genesis - In Their Own Words (2007)

I found this on Amazon Prime. It is also available as a DVD. It feels like a half or partially finished project at best. It is made up of concert footage and interviews (some for radio) that were done years before this movie was released. Most of the interviews are with members of the band but a few of them are with music journalists. The project only covers through the the second album that they did as a trio, Duke. It starts with their early days and seems to cover most of their albums through 1980. The aspect ratio of the movie seems off. I'm not sure exactly why. It was distracting.

I am not an expert on the band. My interest in and awareness of them didn't begin until the mid-1980s with Invisible Touch. I knew that they had a past that went back a ways prior to Invisible Touch. I knew that Peter Gabriel was their original lead singer. I didn't know much else about their past. This film, and I'm not sure it even deserves to be called that, didn't help a whole lot in that regard.

There is some discussion of the departure of Peter Gabriel and then later Steve Hackett. If anything the movie seems to favor the members of the band that stuck around: Phil Collins, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford. There is no mention made of the two drummers that came in to play with the band while they were on tour: Bill Bruford (1976), Chester Thompson (1977-1992). This would be after Peter Gabriel left and Phil Collins took over as lead singer. Thompson was clearly shown in some of the concert footage.

Finally, I can't help but think how inappropriate it was to watch a movie about a band called Genesis on the last day of the year. It would have made more sense to watch it tomorrow, the first day of the new year.

No comments:

Post a Comment