Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles: On Sept. 26, 2025, Rhino Records rereleased Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Although the original album arrived in 1974, this new reissue is being called the 50th anniversary edition for its various versions. The Super Deluxe box set edition includes, among other items, a Dolby Atmos mix of the original tracks and a standard stereo mix of Genesis performing the entire album at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles in 1975.
I was at that show and it was the first time I had seen Genesis, who I learned about later than I would have thought. I was a huge proponent of progressive rock when that genre was flourishing in the 1970s, having attended shows by Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, and King Crimson, to name a few. (To get an idea of the scope of the shows I attended back in the day, check out my reminiscence of Pink Floyd’s inaugural performance of The Wall.)
I was living with my partner (later my wife) Cindy in a small duplex in Redondo Beach, California, when our next door neighbor Steve Bond came by with an album he had recently purchased: Selling England by the Pound. Upon hearing the opening track “Dancing With the Moonlit Night,” I immediately resonated with that what I heard, and every track that followed: It was totally in my wheelhouse.
Until I was exposed to that Genesis’ album — their fifth! – I had totally missed the boat. I don’t recall having heard about their existence, let alone their output. If I had, I would have definitely attempted to attend the L.A. show supporting that album at the Whisky a Go Go on December 18, 1973. I subsequently bought Selling England by the Pound, along with their three preceding ones (Trespass, Nursery Cryme, and Foxtrot) and devoured them all. (I skipped the first one, From Genesis to Revelation, after learning the material wasn’t in the same vein.)
I was more than ready when they released their double album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in late 1974. At that time, my two favorite then-current artists were Yes and Genesis (the reason I qualify that is because the Beatles was always my No. 1, functioning or not). Yes had recently released their own double album Tales From Topographic Oceans, an ambitious effort which consisted of four individual pieces with one continuous track per side. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway contained individual songs, though there were recapitulated themes at various times along the way. While I can’t find the source, I distinctly remember that Tony Banks made it painstakingly clear at the time that this LP was conceptually closer to the Who’s song-based Tommy than it was to Yes’ sprawling Tales From Topographic Oceans.
When Genesis toured North America to support the new album, I was eager to see their sole performance at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles at the start of 1975. The venue’s complete name is the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall but was known locally as the Shrine Civic Auditorium. It opened in 1926, and according to a historical web site, this was at one time the largest theater in the U.S. with more than 6,300 seats, surpassed by the nearby Microsoft (now the Peacock) Theater which was built in 2007. The Shrine featured an elaborate chandelier, an enormous proscenium and a large Möller 4-manual, 67-rank organ with 4,663 pipes – which the historical site states is one of the largest pipe organs ever built and is still used for special occasions. (I have to wonder if Banks would have liked to have played it at the show.) Besides concerts and other events, the Shrine has hosted numerous award shows including the Academy Awards and the Grammys. An update is planned in celebration of its 100th anniversary.
If memory serves it was my third concert at that venue, the first being King Crimson (with the Strawbs) for Starless and Bible Black in June 1974, followed by Traffic for their Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory tour in September that same year. There may have been others but the only other one I recall at the moment was the Grateful Dead in 1978 shortly after they released Terrapin Station.
For The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, I scored tickets in the balcony, dead center front row where Cindy and I sat with friends. For previous tours, Gabriel would sporadically wear costumes and use props for what was a setlist of disparate songs from across their catalog. Here, they threw themselves into the album’s concept with an elaborate, end-to-end unified production.
There was a triptych/three paneled screen behind the band, where various media would be displayed in conjunction with the song being performed. Projected items would alternate between appearing on all three sections at once, on one or two different sections, or sometimes just provide light for Gabriel to cast a shadow (“The Waiting Room”).
Gabriel kept busy throughout, changing costumes in conjunction with the album’s narrative. This included his New York punk outfit and the outrageous Slipperman costume that reminded me of the main character in The Elephant Man. Gabriel performed “The Lamia” in a sock-like enclosure hung from the ceiling that completely collapsed to the floor at the song’s conclusion. The show’s encore reached way back in their catalog with fan favorites “Watcher of the Skies” and “The Musical Box,” which included the costumes that were used for those songs on previous tours.
An old adage is that nobody leaves a theatrical production humming the lighting and the scenery. The impressive production served to support the group’s stellar performance: Genesis was tight and from what I recall played flawlessly. Genesis’ talented members really put on a rousing show and dove into some of the album’s more adventurous sections with energy and confidence.
Bootlegs of this concert appeared over the years with varying degrees of quality. Genesis officially included it on the 1998 release Genesis Archive 1967–75 but did not include the encore. On the new Super Deluxe box set, this concert is presented in its entirety for the first time, including that encore – but there was one thing that wasn’t live: the album’s last track “it.” (Note the official song title is italicized, lowercased, and followed by a period.) Presented on both the 1998 Archive and the 50th anniversary edition, “it” was labeled on the former as “new remixed studio version with new re-recorded vocals and guitar.”
The original concert recording was missing audio so the altered studio version was used to complete the show. On Apple Music (and possibly elsewhere), both versions are incorrectly credited as live at the Shrine. (The tell is the fadeout at the end with no audience heard.) In addition the Genesis News site states, “The last song on the album (“it”) was actually a kind of new studio version, as there was no live recording of it. … Despite some info that circulated earlier, it is not a new live version, but the same version as on Archive.”
Needless to say, I enjoyed my first Genesis performance immensely. I would attend their subsequent tours, even after Steve Hackett left the band. (That ended when Genesis had moved on from the fare they had offered in their progressive rock years, instead creating material I didn’t find satisfying. In concert, any older material performed was mainly relegated to medleys. I believe it was at my final Genesis show where they performed “Home by the Sea,” one of the few post-Hackett pieces I found interesting. An indication that my interest in Genesis’s concerts was over was when after an extended, ethereal conclusion practically no one applauded.)
After The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour ended in 1975, the sets and costumes were put into storage. One would think that would have been the end for that album’s live existence, but there are two notable events that occurred decades later that have kept this concept album alive beyond its original release.
The first is when the Musical Box, a Canadian tribute band who formed in Montreal in 1993, licensed those touring assets. While they had been performing Genesis’ progressive material in various configurations (sometimes as a seven-piece band), it wasn’t until 2004 when they began to painstakingly recreate the entire Lamb performance as it was seen during the original Genesis tours – including the aforementioned stage production. They went as far as presenting the Genesis’ wardrobe and where they appeared on stage during the original performances (e.g. Steve Hackett being seated) as well as their onstage chats between songs. While the Musical Box continues to perform, they retired The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway from their shows in 2023, calling the final set of shows the “last lap.”
Any public-facing web content containing details for the Musical Box’s performance of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is no longer readily available. The Internet Archive, however, provides much media and information about The Lamb show, both by the Musical Box and Genesis. Here is the starting point, and although various images and links might be broken, there is still much fascinating content to absorb. On top of as of this writing that a complete Musical Box performance of The Lamb exists on YouTube.
The second event is Steve Hackett presenting pieces from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway on his Genesis Greats, Lamb Highlights and Solo 2024/2025 tour – though, to be clear, without the original stage assets. In recent years, Hackett has been recreating pieces he had performed with Genesis, including entire albums like Foxtrot and Seconds Out. Hackett revealed in an interview with Broadway World that he wasn’t too keen on The Lamb, which he characterizes as “an anomaly.” Having been more experimental, the LP was unlike the Genesis albums that preceded it and Hackett feels The Lamb wasn’t successful as a whole. Still, he indicated there is much he likes about it and that he knows the album means a lot to fans of prog-era Genesis.
I reached out to Hackett to ask him if he knew about the box set when he was planning the Lamb Highlights tour. He replied that he didn’t: “No, it was just a coincidence. But not a problem anyway! They’re two different projects.” That being said, the timing couldn’t have been more fortuitous.
As of this writing, the final leg of the Lamb Highlights tour starts on Oct. 4, 2025 in Ithaca, New York and ends on Nov. 22 in Portland, Oregon. If these shows follow the pattern established during the previous leg of this tour, the first set will consist of Hackett solo tunes with the second set primarily devoted to selections from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, ending with other Genesis and Hackett pieces. Tour dates with links to tickets can be found on Hackett’s tour page. Whether Lamb album lovers can get to one of the shows or not, Hackett has released a live album recorded at the Royal Albert Hall, autographed by Hackett if purchased directly from his Hackettsongs site.
While the Shrine concert in the new box set is a standard stereo mix, the Dolby Atmos version of the studio album takes center stage. When heard in that format, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is absolutely stunning and is truly immersive. Tim Hughes of Now Spinning Magazine offers an accurate description of the album’s Atmos experience, noting how the mix “lets the music breathe” in ways the stereo versions couldn’t: “The Atmos version doesn’t just remix the album, it liberates it. Instruments are given space to breathe, and details once buried now shine through with crystalline clarity.”
The Atmos mix includes recorded parts that were previously masked (buried) or possibly even muted in the original’s final mix. One example is the studio version of “it.” Instead of the original’s harmony being masked by its placement right on top of the main vocal, there are now three separated vocal parts across the listening field. In Atmos, that version now provides a more impactful and even celebratory conclusion that I felt it previously lacked, considering “it” closed that mammoth journey.
For those wondering why all the hubbub for Dolby Atmos specifically and spatial audio generally, here’s a brief summary: The Atmos process delivers a markedly different listening experience from a basic stereo mix as it uses something called object-based audio, where items can be placed anywhere within a 3D space. In other words, sounds aren’t locked to specific channels as is the case for stereo or traditional surround formats, hence the term “immersive.” A simple paradigm is to think of stereo as a wall with items placed left, right or center, but it’s flat, while Dolby Atmos is a big box where items can be placed anywhere within that space.
A musical part that might have been masked or muted for the stereo mix can now be placed somewhere within that Dolby Atmos 3D space, so it stands out. I recently experienced this process first hand, working with veteran engineer Steve Smith in mixing tracks for my 2021 album Creétisvan. We moved the placement of parts that may have been masked to have them stand out, along with unmuting items that weren’t integrated in the original release for creative reasons. Anyone interested in learning more about Dolby Atmos, including how it differs from spatial audio, should visit Soundcore’s informative essay “Spatial Audio vs Dolby Atmos: What’s the Difference?”
Folks who are already embracing the Dolby Atmos format should definitely give the newly mixed tracks a listen: The Super Deluxe box set has all the bells and whistles, while the Dolby Atmos mix is available along with the Shrine performance on various streaming platforms, including Apple Music. In addition, Genesis, incredibly, officially offers the entire Shrine show on YouTube.
Experiencing the vibrant Dolby Atmos mix and revisiting the Shrine concert rekindled the excitement of discovering Genesis and attending that first performance. I wish I had seen them in concert sooner, but The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway album and the Shrine concert made for a wonderful start – and the audio presented for this new box set brought it all back.
Special thanks to Steve Smith and Rick North.
© 2025 Mike Tiano. All Rights Reserved
- How the Beatles’ Struggles to Follow the ‘Help!’ Movie Led Directly to ‘Revolver’ - February 20, 2026
- Reconsidering the Beatles’ Second Film ‘Help!’ - December 18, 2025
- The Beatles’ Charismatic ‘Help!’: 60 Years Later - November 26, 2025
