In 1982 the classic line-up of Genesis reunited for a one-off show at England’s Milton Keynes Bowl. They humorously billed it as Six Of The Best – a reference to the traditional punishment for naughty schoolboys in mid-20th century England, in which the teacher dispensed half a dozen strikes with a cane to the hands or bottom.
Their aim was to raise money for Peter Gabriel’s then debt-ridden WOMAD project, said to have personally cost the singer around £200,000. “Ambition got ahead of reality,” he later said of the world music festival he’d helped launch in 1980.
“We went in there with evangelical fervour, and we thought everyone else was going to be as excited as we were. It became a nightmare when we realised there was no way we were getting the tickets to cover our costs.
“The debts were way above what I could manage; but people saw me as the only fatcat worth squeezing, so I got a lot of nasty phone calls – and a death threat.”
Although the concert was never recorded, it holds a special place in the hearts of Genesis members and fans alike. This is an abbreviated account of Prog’s 2022 feature.
1. It begins
At around 6pm Phil Collins, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Chester Thompson and Daryl Stuermer took to the stage. The sixth member, as ever, took a different approach. Almost 10 years to the day after he’d appeared onstage in a dress wearing the head of a fox, without warning his bandmates, he was up to his old tricks. Four pallbearers carried a white coffin to the centre of the stage, and out came Gabriel in the black leather jacket of his Rael character from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.
Rutherford: We all smiled when the coffin came on. It was like, “That’s our Pete!”
Stuermer: I don’t think any of us knew that was going to happen. They put the coffin down and it was like he came back from the dead. It was a lot of fun!
Collins: If he’d told us he was thinking of coming on in a coffin we would probably have said, “Is that really the best thing?” But he did it and it was funny.
2. They’re going to get away with it too…
Gabriel quickly proved he’d done his homework; he remembered all the lyrics and even brought back the flower mask for Supper’s Ready. While many in the 60,000-strong audience had seen him with Genesis before, many others hadn’t – but the band convinced them all.
Gabriel: It felt a warm occasion, there was a nice feeling up on stage.
Hackett: I watched the concert from the wings, and I thought it was very emotional. It was as packed backstage as it was onstage. The magic started to happen just at that moment when Pete started to sing, ‘Can you tell me where my country lies’ – that open-ended statement of positive perplexity.
3. …Even the bits they get wrong
“Some of you may be wondering what we’re doing here,” Gabriel told the crowd. “Actually, this is a sequence from a previous event by the name of WOMAD – a great event that lost a pile of money. But I’m very lucky to have a group of people who support these ideals, so in return for your cash we’ll give you what we think you will like from this combination.”
Collins: It all came flooding back – falling over things, pulling microphone leads out of sockets... it was chaos!
Thompson: They set up mics around the stage where Peter said he was going to be. Come the day of the show, Peter was wherever he was at the moment, and it wasn’t where he’d said he’d be the day before!
Banks: I was wearing a tracksuit that had “kamikaze” written on it, which underlined my attitude. It was odd, and not as good musically as we had been used to. Pete went on to the second drum kit for Turn It On Again, but he couldn’t keep time because he didn’t realise that there was an extra beat in it. It was quite amusing, really!
4. The return of the Hackett
Hackett, who’d left Genesis in 1977, returned to take part in the encores – I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) and The Knife. Stuermer, who’d joined the band on a touring basis in 1978, had no problem with it, despite suggesttions to the opposite.
Stuermer: I knew he was there. A lot of times I’m reading YouTube comments and people pit me and Steve against each other. They’ll say, “I think Steve is better” or, “I think Daryl is better.” I get along with Steve really well. I think he’s an excellent guitar player. It’s funny that people are trying to make out we’re enemies.
Hackett: I’d met Daryl before. He was a very nice guy, and obviously a great player. I was touched that there was a big roar from the crowd when I came on – it was the complete team, as far as it was possible, at that point. Not to forget my predecessor, Anthony Phillips. He was of tremendous importance to the band’s development and success. They were big shoes to fill when I first joined.
5. After the show
By 8.30pm it was all over. As it was highly unlikely all these people would be in the same place again for a considerable time, no one was in a hurry to leave.
Rutherford: These things are always so surreal; they go by so fast, and before you know it, the event is over. Your mind is so taxed with trying to get the parts right, you miss what’s going on.
Gabriel: It was a bit like going to school when you haven’t been there for 30 years. In this case it was only six years, but it still felt like a lifetime.
Banks: It felt like a bit of a dream. I was very glad when it was over because I hadn’t particularly enjoyed playing that stuff at the time!
Hackett: I got riotously drunk afterwards. I have to say everyone was. It was such a party, such a vibe. I think I was literally carried out of the place at the end – a combination of the excitement, jetlag and one bottle of pop too many. We were all out of our brains, hugging each other; as emotional as a Genesis team can get.
6. Job done
Six Of The Best remains an exceptionally fond memory that achieved its aims – although some of the band lived to regret the decision not to record it, due to doubts over how good it would actually be.
Banks: That show did go some way to sorting out Peter’s financial problem; WOMAD became a monster thing.
Collins: Importantly, we helped stop our mate being jailed – or worse.
Hackett: It was lovely to be involved, and lovely to do it for Pete and WOMAD. Everyone came together for all the right reasons: it wasn’t about the precision of the night. It was the spirit that was so important.
Gabriel: Although they’re often portrayed as very unhip, exploitative capitalist men of the rock world, it’s entirely down to them that the WOMAD movement can move, or struggle, or crawl forward. And they didn’t get anything out of it.
7. And one of the worst – the ‘Genesis curse’
No account of Six Of The Best can be made without recalling just how awful the weather was. Everyone was not just soaked – they were sodden. Sopping. Drenched. Saturated.
Gabriel: It started at about 6am and went on to 2am. Solid rain.
Hackett: It poured all day and all night. Everybody remembers that. Legendarily wet seems to be the Genesis curse. If there’s something taking place outdoors, it will rain – that was certainly true of my time with the band. I think loads of people caught colds and flu, because if you didn’t have an umbrella, you were literally sunk.
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