March 1983 found Genesis once again back in their newly complete recording studio: The Farm to begin work on their next album simply titled "Genesis" . As Tony Banks stated at the time…" The album was called Genesis just to establish that the group has a positive identity of its own which is distinct from the three people in it…"

One of the first songs to come out of the rehearsals for the album was Mama and in August it was released as the first single from the album. A tour was organised taking in most of the USA and Canada with a break for Christmas. The lighting rig that accompanied them for this tour consisted entirely, for the first time of Vari-Lites over 180 in all, which gave many more lighting configurations than normal as the photos later in this feature will show!

The opening show of the tour at Normal Illinois differed from the rest of the live sets by including several tracks which were subsequently dropped from the set list. The set for this show was as follows: Dodo/Lurker/Carpet Crawl/That's All/Mama/Illegal Alien/11th Earl Of Mar-Ripples-Squonk-Firth Of Fifth medley/Man On The Corner/Who Dunnit/Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea/Keep It Dark/Its Gonna Get Better/Follow You Follow Me/In The Cage-Cinema Show-In That Quiet Earth-Raven medley/Afterglow/Abacab/Los Endos/Misunderstanding/Turn It On Again with Sixties Medley.

During the show at Milwaukee on 10th November Daryl broke guitar string and That's All was played without lead guitar. At the gig at the Kemper Arena in Kansas on 29th January the show was interrupted by a power cut and the band replaced the interrupted Illegal Alien with Misunderstanding.

After the first show in the set altered slightly and settled into the pattern which it would follow for the rest of the tour… Dodo/Lurker/Abacab/That's All/Mama/11th Earl Of Mar-Squonk/Illegal Alien/Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea/Keep It Dark/Its Gonna Get Better/Follow You Follow Me/In The Cage-Cinema Show-In That Quiet Earth-Raven medley/Afterglow/Los Endos/Turn It On Again medley.

The band would also throw in the added bonus of Man On The Corner, Who Dunnit? and Misunderstanding on the Stateside leg of the tour and Carpet Crawl and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and Musical Box as parts of the medley at the first of the five UK shows in February 1984. Misunderstanding also made an appearance at this gig.

November 1983 saw the release of the second single from the album: That's All with the 12" version containing alive version of Firth Of Fifth which had been recorded at the Savo Theater in New York in December 1981. The final single from the album; Illegal Alien was issued in January 1984 with the added track being the live version of Turn It On Again with the Sixties medley included on the 12" version Incidentally, this track should have been the second single from the album but the order of releases was changed at the last minute.

The five shows at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham were filmed for a live concert video release which appeared the following year under the title: "Genesis Live - The Mama Tour". The next instalment of our story sees the band working on their biggest selling album and biggest ever tour to promote it… Invisible Touch.