Selling England By The Pound is still my favorite, although I latched onto this band around the time of Nursery Crimes. I loved parts of Lamb and the others, but I think this Gabriel era recording holds up with the strongest tracks overall.
I'll never forget the first time I saw Genesis live.
It was during their very first US tour - they played the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, 3rd on the bill to Styx (!!) at an all day concert that featured mainly local bands and has-beens. Little to no pre-publicity - I couldn't believe they were actually going to be in Chi-town. This would have been before SEBTP came out but after Foxtrot. Peter Gabriel was the only band member who stood up to perform - everyone else sat down to play. Only about 30 people in the audience knew who they were and had come to see them...it wasn't pretty at first but they won over most in the drunken crowd with Supper's Ready.
When Genesis came back in support of SEBTP the next year, they naturally played a solo show, which was at Northwestern. By that time I was writing music reviews and was on the guest list. Yay! Chicago eventually became a huge town for the band: the last show Peter ever did with the Genesis was at the Arie Crown Theater in McCormack place during the Lamb tour. It was bittersweet - they encored with Supper's Ready and the entire road crew danced on stage wearing Pete's old costumes (including my favorite, the fox head).
I enjoyed bits of A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering. There were some nice things on them. But I didn't care at all for tthe Phil Collins super-hits era. Yeck.
Gabriel's solo career OTOH soared, if sporadically. He's someone I'll still pay to see - I'm not on many guest lists these days. Peter never disappoints, although he looks alarmingly older these days compared to the beautiful young man he was in 1972 when I first saw him in person.
I've never had the courage to see Musical Box...but now I may do.
