When I was a teen in the glory days of rock ’n’ roll, my father had access to free concert tickets through his work at a daily newspaper. With his help, I got clutch seats for heyday shows by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, Rush, ELO, Tom Petty and the Grateful Dead — among many others.
One spring in 1976, I asked if he had anything for an upcoming Genesis concert; I’d heard the band was good but knew nothing about their music.
Suffice it to say, that moment kinda changed my life.
A friend and I wound up in the second row for the band’s now-legendary Trick of the Tail tour — the first time Phil Collins handled vocals, with prog-rock hero Bill Bruford (of Yes) taking over on percussion.
My pal and I emerged feeling like we’d just returned from another planet. Quickly buying up every available recording, I soon discovered the band’s masterpiece — a double-LP entitled The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. I’m not the only one who feels this is, quite simply, the greatest rock album ever made.
As it happens, the record is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week.
Released November 22, 1974, Lamb is a 22-track, 94-minute rock opera that boasts astonishing variety, dazzling invention and the peerless musicianship of Collins on drums — along with Peter Gabriel (lead vocals), Steve Hackett (guitar), Tony Banks (keys) and Mike Rutherford (bass and 12-string).
All five went on to successful solo careers — the latter scoring with 80s pop-group Mike + the Mechanics, while Collins and Gabriel moved millions of records and played sold-out shows around the world.
But for me, The Lamb remains their finest moment.
Story-wise, it tells the surreal saga of a Puerto Rican youth who is inexplicably transported from downtown Manhattan to an Alice-in-Wonderland world of tricky traps, deformed humans, bizarre beasts and baffling dilemmas. The tale is recounted in Gabriel’s lyrics, and a sprawling prose version found in teensy type on the album’s liner.
As for the music, I don’t think it’s ever been surpassed in dexterity and innovation.
There’s thunderous prog-rock (“Back in N.Y.C.,” “Lilywhite Lilith”); prickly, acrobatic jams (“Riding the Scree”); the comic lunacy of “Counting Out Time” and “Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging”; and the avant-garde “Waiting Room,” with dissonant tinkling and caterwauling that used to drive my cats bonkers.
There are slow, somber instrumentals; elegant harmonies and stately pauses in “Chamber of 32 Doors” (my personal fave, sounding for all the world like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young); the soft, meditative “Carpet Crawlers” — a minor hit that become a Genesis concert staple for decades; and best of all, the climactic “It” — a lush, soaring anthem that still sounds like it was written about five years from now.
And those time signatures!
That’s the basic recurring pattern of beats in a song, and most rock uses a plain old four-beat structure called 4/4. Lamb begins and ends with this — but in between, it highlights such common variations as 2/4 and 3/4, plus the trickier 7/8, 9/8, 12/8 and even the rare 6/4.
(I’m guessing on some of these; though the number of beats is usually obvious, few popular bands use anything but 2, 3 or 4 — and exact time signatures can be tough to peg.)
And let’s not forget the individual musicianship: Collins’s amazing drum-work (just listen to the texture he creates on “Colony of Slippermen”); Rutherford’s meaty but nimble bass; Hackett’s pioneering solos (some all but unrecognizable as guitar); and Banks’s eclectic keys — with operatic synth, sprightly piano and classical-style solos.
All this is bolstered by help from famed producer Brian Eno, who has also worked with David Bowie, U2, Coldplay and the Talking Heads.
Over it all run Gabriel’s wide-ranging vocals: screaming anger through “Back in N.Y.C.”; plaintive elegy in “The Lamia”; antic bewilderment in “Counting Out Time”; and the deliriously overdubbed “Grand Parade.”
His lyrics, meanwhile, refer to Greek mythology, Groucho Marx, Caryl Chessman, Glenn Miller, the Bible, Marshall McLuhan, James Bond and John Keats; plus, you have to love any lyricist who uses the obscure English word slubberdegullion.
After the album’s release, Gabriel was contacted by director William Friedkin, fresh off his cinematic double-whammy with The Exorcist and The French Connection; but a film version of Lamb never materialized.
The band’s 1974-75 tour featured the entire album played start to finish; one of these extraordinary performances is beautifully preserved on 1998’s Genesis Archive (1967-75).
Fans should look for Steve Hackett’s forthcoming U.S. tour, which will feature highlights from the album. Dates have not been announced just yet; check hackettsongs.com.
