Genesis - DVD The Way we Walk Review

The Way we Walk - Review

I received an email from those nice people at Gut Vision who offered to send me a copy of the new Genesis DVD, ‘The Way We Walk’ for review, which I was only most happy to accept.

I saw Genesis on this tour in 92 at the Knebworth event I will always remember that day because I drove up on a Saturday and camped the night as the Saturday date was cancelled and moved to Sunday, but during Saturday there was a sound test and the band played ‘no son’ and the ‘home by the sea’ this was the first I had heard them live in real life and it brought a tear to my eye, we could not see much as the whole set was behind a fence, but both myself and my friend managed to get backstage and meet Phil Collins (and Phil if you manage to see this a thank you for spending the time to talk to us!!)

Anyhow back to the DVD so I saw the open air version of this tour and did not get the chance to see the earls court version, but was glad to see ‘dreaming while you sleep’ was on the set list as that was dropped on many dates including the Knebworth 92 event.

After receiving the DVD thorough the mail I loaded it into my DVD player, up came a familiar sight the ‘we can’t dance’ intro that is the same on the VHS release I have, but it then loaded the DVD menu

I have seen the concert a few times on VHS so was keen to look at the extras on this disk so the first thing I did was load the interviews.

The DVD interviews are done with Phil, Mike and Tony at Earl's Court prior to the concert. The DVD viewer has to read the question from a menu and then press play to hear the answer. This is a little annoying on my DVD anyhow. Now it always amazes me in the way Tony for example explains how a song is created from one of there Jamming sessions, the way he talks about ‘No Son’ and then plays a few notes very awesome!

DVD Concert

Like I said before I have seen this concerts many times on VHS and it is exactly the same but the big difference has to be the picture and sound quality, compared to VHS the picture is great not the sharpest picture I have soon but very good transfer to DVD, the sound I only have pro-logic surround sound at home but even when I switched the disc to 5.1 what a difference you could hear it was like being there, so my next purchase is going to be a 5.1 setup now I am lucky being in the IT business I have a computer projector so I watched the DVD also on that which was even better :->

As you all by now know the tech specs for those who don’t there are :

It is one of the phenomenal gigs they played at Earl’s Court that is the focus of this double DVD. It is so much more than just a front row seat at one of the great shows of the 1990’s, it is effectively the ‘Greatest Hits Of Genesis’ performed by a band at the height of their powers. It’s one of the most impressive live concert DVD’s yet to be released. The band’s impeccable performance is further enhanced by 5.1 surround sound. And for those real ‘muso’ enthusiasts, each band member’s performance can be studied individually using a choice of 16 different camera positions. It is undoubtedly one of the finest examples of live audio and visual recording ever."

So this is the first time I get to watch a member other than the singer during a song, during ‘Home by the Sea’ I watched Tony play it was great to see using the zoom on my DVD you can zoom right into the keyboard and watch the keys for all those tribute bands out there this is a must.

NTSC
for all those over the pond I set my DVD and my laptop DVD to region 1 just to check and the disc played fine I cannot test the NTSC but if you have a laptop or desktop machine at least you can watch the DVD if you don’t want to wait until the release.

DVD Commentary With Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks
I had read in the other reviews that the commentary was not very good but after listening to it, I have to agree with them all. It must be without question one of the worst commentary tracks I have ever heard on DVD! I was hopping to hear some interesting comments about this concert maybe about specific songs they played, or backstage chat. There is nothing maybe a few snippets of information that's about it maybe they will take note and do a better job on the commentary next time.

Slide Show
Each DVD offers a slide show of rare pictures from the tour. While viewing the slide show on DVD 1, you can hear an instrumental version of "Way of The World" in the background. On DVD 2, an instrumental bed of "Living Forever" is playing.

Original Tour Program
Another great touch on this DVD is the addition of the tour booklet on video. I've never seen a band do this before, and it's an excellent idea. I hope Genesis does similar reproductions on future DVD reissues.

Conclusion
This is a very good DVD to add to your collection its nice to see all the camera angles as so few DVD have this feature and I get the feeling this is a quality product not some disc that has been thrown together just to make some extra money out of the fans, they have spent time and effort producing this disc which they did not really have to I would give the disc 9/10 and hope for more releases soon!! (maybe a CAS release?)