RoadBlog
decker omnibus would be picking us up from the Americana Hotel in midtown Manhattan and taking us to the gig. For the band themselves there was the somewhat scuzzier Gorham Hotel (now the Blakely Hotel) awaiting them — a regular B-list resting post for bands who had yet to make the big time. All the build-up promotion to the occasion, a co-promotion with the predominant WNEW-FM radio station, had been via their celebrated DJs — Alison ‘The Nightbird’ Steele, and the late Scott Muni — one of the pioneers of FM progressive rock radio. Not only that, but as a committed Anglophile, he had become an early adopter of Genesis, playing tracks like Watcher of the Skies. Just as Bruce Springsteen’s UK debut two years later would be dogged by the now infamous billboard proclaiming ‘Finally, London is ready for Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band’, so the American media machine remained clueless as to how to package this ars nova, which redefined any concept they may have had about English
prog rock. In fact, WNEW was able to produce no more imaginative strapline than ‘My whole life changed when I started using Genesis.’ Yuk! The band’s man on the ground in the States had been Ed Goodgold, manager of Buddah label-mates Sha Na Na. Things started to go wrong when the band learned that Ed had booked them into the Brandeis University near Boston for an unannounced warm-up gig prior to the main event, which completely died on its feet. The band had been dogged with voltage irregularities, and lack of soundcheck time (particularly affecting Tony Banks’ organ). Seemingly, no consideration had been given to the different power voltages, the motored instruments running on 60 Hz unlike the 50 cycles in the UK. This meant that the Mellotron, which they’d just acquired from King Crimson, along with the Hammond organ, wouldn’t play nicely with the guitars. Their attempts to soundcheck at Philharmonic Hall were also thwarted on the day when the band couldn’t get into the Hall
Genesis in NYC
until 4pm, as the Philharmonic Orchestra was in residence. It was the first time they had failed to soundcheck in two years. With the set list already compromised, everything was shaping up to be a royal clusterfuck. Added to that, due to the inadequate ventilation in the Gorham, Peter Gabriel had woken in the stifled room with ominous signs of catarrh, which would affect his entire performance. In the hours before, the gig ticket sales had not been going well — urgent action was required in the form of a 30-second ad blast — and yours truly was to be the one to deliver. Collared while in residence at the Americana bar (naturally) by one of the record company lackeys, it took 75 bucks hard cash in hand to prise me away from my beer, and down to the recording studio. I was told I’d be back at the bar in time to buy the next round — all I had to do was hone my vowels into wellrounded public school diction (think classic BBC 1950s voice) and read the, er … ‘script’ designed to capture the bourgeois world from which it was assumed this public school band
“With all the earlier hassles, and the fact the band had been unable to soundcheck, it was heading for disaster.” had emanated. Someone had clearly got wind of the fact that Peter at the time was married to the daughter of the Queen’s private secretary — which made the script even more ludicrously wide of the mark. Anyway, I nailed it in two takes, and was soon back spraying my hard-earned on the next round of Schlitz (who remembers them?) chased down with Rebel Yell. As for the gig itself — a WNEW-FM fund-raiser for a Cerebral Palsey charity — with all the earlier hassles, and the fact the band had been unable to soundcheck, it was heading for disaster. And when the show was 30 minutes’ late kicking off, to the sound of slow hand clapping, it merely compounded the situation. When the MC finally introduced the band, adding the cringeworthy corollary that Keith Emerson had offered his endorsement, they launched straight into Watcher of the Skies from the Foxtrot album (released two months earlier) — followed by Musical Box. As the lights panned, emerging from the shadows was this strange lead singer with a foxes head and long red dress, in all its shimmering mysticism. Welcome to New York, Peter Gabriel! From there, it was plain sailing, as they built up to the 22-minute long Supper’s
Ready, ending the set with Return of the Giant Hogweed, and encored with The Knife. And then they vanished. For a very, very long time. No-one was allowed in the dressing room. By their own high standards, the show is a shambles. In the dressing room afterwards, the air turned blue - even the normally taciturn Tony Banks was volubly enraged. Despite all the meticulous pre-planning by their chief roadie-cum-everything else, Richard Macphail, another member of the Charterhouse School collective, the gods had conspired against them… and yet the gig was, well, somehow a massive success. Charisma owner, Tony Stratton-Smith, admitted he had never been so nervous before a gig in his life. “The only comparison would have been the Nice’s first gig at Fillmore East!” I remember him admitting. It was a tremendous gamble — although against all the odds, it did pay off. In spite of all the technical hang-ups, which meant the band were only able to deliver a show to around 70% of normal ability, they received a universal thumbs-up. Not only that, but they ended up playing to a full house. My dubious voiceover had evidently had some impact. It was after the show that the fun really began. A press soirée had been arranged at
the iconic Tavern on the Green in Central Park, which attracted the usual horde of groupies. Slowly, the band arrived, although there was no sign of Peter Gabriel. In a scene that predated Cameron Crowe’s epochal Almost Famous, I was approached by groupie Queen Bee asking how she could get to Peter Gabriel. But Peter was nowhere to be seen… until much, much later. The one thing the Gorham did have going for it was an electric door entry. It may not have been able to ventilate its rooms, but it knew how to exclude groupies. My final memory was the following morning seeing said groupie locked out, but now in the foyer, forlornly clutching a cup of coffee, and asking if it would be ok for her to take it up to Peter’s room. She had presumably been sat there all night. Desperate measures, indeed — and if ever an era introduced three new terms to the lexicon — ‘hype’, ‘payola’, and ‘groupie’ — then this was probably it. Not that there was any suggestion of ‘payola’ being involved in this instance (is the firm Headliner disclaimer).
43 Headliner
