GET ME OUT OF THE CAGE!

The curious tale of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway on tour

- Words: Daryl Easlea

Half-a-century ago, Genesis released their final album with Peter Gabriel. The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway received mixed reviews at the time and the shows that followed raised more than just a few eyebrows. To celebrate the release of the muchanticipated 50th-anniversary box set, Prog speaks to those who were there.

Genesis's sixth long-player, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was a complex, dense double album about Rael, a Puerto Rican street punk, with a troubled gestation; the accompanying concerts were intended to be a theatrical tour de force. The entire enterprise would have proved challenging as it was, but then Peter Gabriel handed in his notice a few dates into the tour.

In a mixture of brand-new and archive interviews with key players and associates, as well as on-therecord information, this is the story of the ambitious tour to support the band's sometimes bewildering but hugely influential album.

Tony Banks: Fifty years ago, I was still a young man. Remembering some of this stuff is... quite interesting.

Steve Hackett: Memories may wane, there will be different takes on the event, rather like Rashomon the movie.

How many samurais does it take to screw in a light bulb? Tony Smith: My attitude was 'Me and the band against the world.' That was the whole philosophy of that time.

June 1974: after the Top 3 UK success of Selling England By The Pound, a Top 30 single with I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) and growing success in the US, Genesis decamp to Headley Grange to write and rehearse new material, a double concept album. However, over the summer film director William Friedkin contacts Peter Gabriel.

Tony Smith: William Friedkin had read Peter's writing and decided that Peter would be a great collaborator.