Definitive Trick (Virtuoso 059/060)
Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh, PA – April 13th, 1976
Disc 1 (56:47): Dance On A Volcano, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Fly On A Windshield, Carpet Crawlers, The Cinema Show, Robbery Assault & Battery, White Mountain, Firth Of Fifth
Disc 2 (61:06): Steve’s intro., Entangled, Squonk, Supper’s Ready, I Know What I Like, Los Endos, It / Watcher Of The Skies
Genesis’ show at the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh on April 13th is the first of four broadcasts during the Trick Of A Tail tour. The show was broadcast live on local radio station WDVE on the date and repeated it several times later. Despite the great performance and sound quality, it took almost twenty years for the first unofficial title to surface with this show on A Trick Of The Show (Highland HL 010/11#G1). This was good sounding but was missing the encore. Highland issued it again on A Trick Of The Stage (Highland HL 319/320) with better sound quality but with some annoying static during “The Cinema Show” and with the encore “It,” but missing still “Watcher Of The Skies.”
Definitive Trick is close to truly being definitive. It is punchier sounding compared to the second Highland release and lacks the loud patch of static in “The Cinema Show.” It also has the entire encore of “It” and “Watcher Of The Skies.” There are minor issues such as the channel drop out at 2:38 to 2:41 in “White Mountain” and faint distortion in “Firth Of Fifth.”
“Dance On A Volcano” starts the show and afterwards Phil Collins greets the audience with, “Good evening Baltimore.” Realizing his mistake fast he yells: “Pittsburgh. What am I talking about Baltimore. Baltimore was last night. See you’re only forty miles away. Anyone here from Baltimore? Anybody from England? Any Canadians? French people? All from Pittsburgh, eh? Oh well…”
He refers to the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway medley as “Lamb Casserole” this evening and the delivery is breathless. It is well throughout with the contrast between the fast opening, the plodding and heavy “Fly On A Windshield” and ending with a sublime “Carpet Crawlers.”
Mike Rutherford speaks about One-Eye the scraggly wolf from Pittsburgh before “White Mountain.” Pittsburgh is one of the live and definitive recordings of this little dramatic narrative. Before “Firth Of Fifth” Collins introduces Bill Bruford to very loud applause, and jokes that Bruford told him he had family in Pittsburgh.
Virtuoso tracked Steve Hackett’s introduction to “Entangled” separately, where he speaks about Tony Banks and the Maria Callas school of synthesizer playing, referring to the high pitched solo he plays by the song’s end. Its transition into the much heavier “Squonk” is another dramatic highlight of the set. Collins’ tambourine is very loud in the mix for some reason, almost drowning out the other instruments.
Rutherford’s explication of the “tap daaaaaaaance” for Collins precedes “Supper’s Ready.” “Did you know you’re on the radio tonight?” “WDVE” Collins says, telling everyone to give the radio audience a hand. The show ends with “Los Endos” and the excellent “It” and “Watcher Of The Skies” instrumental are the only encore. With so few versions of this show in silver discs there isn’t much argument regarding the definitive version. This is superior to the latter day Highland release and is an essential recording to own.
