Duke’s Misunderstanding (Siréne-041)
The Forum, Montreal, Quebec, Canada – June 19th, 1980
Disc 1: Deep In The Motherlode, Dancing With The Moonlit Knight/intro, Squonk, One For The Vine, Behind The Lines, Duchess, Guide Vocal, Turn It On Again, Duke’s Travels, Duke’s End, mc, The Lady Lies, mc (The Tonight Show theme)
Disc 2: Ripples, Misunderstanding, In The Cage, Raven, Afterglow, Follow You Follow Me, Dance On A Volcano, Drum Duet, Los Endos, I Know What I Like. Bonus track: Tony Banks Interview
Duke’s Misunderstanding is another soundboard liberated from The Farm, remastered and pressed by the Siréne label. The quality similar to the Dijon and Sao Paulo tapes with the music very well balanced and detailed and the audience sound very far away. There are two versions of this tape circulating. The first has the first five seconds of “Deep In The Motherlode” missing and the second have the missing piece restored. Siréne use the latter so this show is complete. Two versions of this tape were released by fan produced cdr labels, Albert A La Carte (PRRP SAE 01) and Duke Of The Forum (GRU01). The GRU release was dehissed too much and doesn’t sound as good as the PRRP version. Duke’s Misunderstanding sounds superior to these two versions with much more depth to the bass and no distortion present whatsoever. The CDR label D3 copied the Sirene on Dancing With Genesis. Of all the Genesis releases so far this is probably the best.
This is also one of the best recordings from the Duke tour. It sounds as good as the May 7th recording (Musica, Duke’s Source Live) and has an advantage over that because there are no cuts between songs. The performance is really good with the only imperfections being Banks’ losing the beat in the disco section of “One For The Vine” and Phil’s somewhat sore voice. The set list has some variations from earlier shows with “Dancing With The Moonlit Knight” serving as an intro to “Squonk” instead of “Carpet Crawlers” (which was dropped entirely), “Raven” added to the medley and the band’s current single “Misunderstanding” being added. The material from Duke is played for the most part as a suite from “Behind The Lines” to “Duke’s End.” The reiteration of the “Duke” theme in the final piece always sends shivers down my spine (“I am the one who guided you this far”)! Both Gabriel and Collins customarily address the audience in their native language and Phil speaks to the Quebecois in basic French.
The second disc ends with a special Tony Banks radio interview done in Montreal before the show. He talks about the new album, the difference between progressive and traveling in the United States. It is a fascinating interview and a nice touch by the label to include it here. Labels should look around more for material like this for filler to give a more complete historical background to these concerts. The cover art utilizes themes from the Duke LP with several Albert’s running around in a circle and with a very strange picture of Phil on the inside cover with him standing on stage next to the cardboard cut out used for “Duchess” with him touching her exposed breast. Given the sound quality, presentation and the show this is one of the best releases from 1980 for Genesis and one of the best so far on the Siréne label to surface. It is nice to see a label pay attention to these recordings and give them the high-class treatment they richly deserve.
