Yet, co-founding keyboardist Tony Banks and longtime engineer Nick Davis managed to curate something cohesive with BBC Broadcasts. As already described, the broadcasts are unfortunately only shortened (missing tracks) and there were no remixes of the multitracks, so there are no big improvements as far as the sound of the shows is concerned (compared to the known recordings from the BBC archive). While it was known that all four concerts had been recorded in sound and vision, it was unclear until now which excerpts from which of the four concerts were used for the video and DVD. And that’s not even touching on the fact that much of this material has been previously available elsewhere.

And, for any slightly-more-than-casual listeners looking to wrap their heads around the totality of an extraordinary career that set the bar not once but twice, BBC Broadcasts is a great place to start and an even better place to keep coming back to. The cover of the second CD depicts Squonk, but there is no recording from 1976 - the CD starts with the track Squonk from Knebworth 1978 though.If all the sessions and concerts used here and available from the BBC had been released unabridged, it would have been a manageable 12CD set (two CDs for the early sessions and Paris, one CD for Wembley 1975, two CDs each for Knebworth 78, Lyceum 1980, Wembley 1987 and Knebworth 1992, and another for Birmingham 1998).

Turn It On Again (B-side of the US Promo 12" of Turn It On Again, 7 May - on the label it says Drury Lane by mistake). The somewhat harsh highs of the BBC original are effectively softened here, otherwise everything is virtually identical.Nothin' like a ratty looking fox mask or a creepy old man mask to scare the stoned university students into submission.

Largely identical to the BBC version, but here they have removed the "dirt" below 60 Hz, but not the mains hum. We are quite aware that not all of the before mentioned broadcasted concerts are complete shows, but nevertheless they could have released all available content. I've heard a few interesting Genesis things from 1970-71 BBC sessions -- early versions of songs that changed in some way before making it onto an actual album. One For the Vine ( Three Sides Live - 5 May Drury Lane); on the radio, the version from the Lyceum 6.

Overall, though, these early BBC recordings document a band whose spirit and drive are palpable, even infectious, as they throttle against the physical limitations of the various radio studios. It is also noticeable that there is only one dedicated to the early BBC recordings and that some of the later ones have been shortened.