To me, they truly were equals (we are discussing the earlier parts of their trajectory). Each band did their own thing, musically. And both were superb, in recordings, and on stage. In live performances, I will give the edge to Genesis for the great theatrics that Peter provided, creating stories within the songs for us to follow along to.
Interesting thread!
As Jeff often does, he knocked it out of the park and rendered my post redundant!
And to hit on a few other points raised (by Jeff and others), Yes had the edge (pun intended) in some ways as far as live presentations go, but Genesis was no slouch with Peter’s stage presence, costumes, their innovative stage sets (making a lot out of very little), and especially, and the slide shows and movies that they did for Lamb and for the Trick of the Tail tour (yes, they used much of the Lamb slides and movies for their abbreviated Lamb numbers). For the Trick tour they had some new movies and slides (on the same three screens) which were very effective. And then perhaps best of all was the “Mirrors” tour in 1978 that was one of the best examples of stagecraft I have ever witnessed. (I took photos at the MSG show in NYC, and was lucky enough to be there on the night that Gabriel showed up for the encore (“I know what I like”)).
But as far as their music, I would have to cite the oft-mentioned “the bands were so different, despite being mentioned in the same breath” logic. To me, they were both amazing bands that took music and stagecraft to places that had not been attempted before.
Forbidden (by the OP
) territory: I agree that both bands lost the plot a bit at times, but even on those albums, there was always at least one or two tracks that were worthwhile on every album.
But perhaps Genesis took the cake for ugliness with “Illegal Alien.” I eschew music videos (always have) but I have seen enough of the video for that song to know that they made quite an error of judgement. But…um…it was the EIGHTIES, and almost everyone made errors in judgment.
(Oh, one more thing: King Crimson, Gentle Giant, and Happy the Man (paging
@BassHappy) are the three bands that are so stunningly different, so crazily wonderful, that they simply must be proof that Uber-intelligent aliens came to earth and implanted an intelligence and a level of artistic prowess and uniqueness in them so that all three bands could be so different from any other band, before or since.
And King Crimson is STILL doing it!!!)
