Supper's Ready - Live Introduction

Live Introduction

Live performances of "Supper's Ready" were preceded by Peter Gabriel telling a story. This is the story told at the Rainbow Theatre on 20 October 1973 (as released on the Genesis Archive 1967–75 set):

"Old went past the pet shop, which was never open, into the park, which was never closed, and the park was full of a very smooth, clean, green grass. So he took off all his clothes and began rubbing his flesh into the wet, clean, green grass. He accompanied himself with a little tune - it went like this."

"Beneath the ground, the dirty brown writhing things called 'worms' interpreted the pitter-patter from above as rainfall. Rainfall in worm-world means two things: mating and bath time. Both of these experiences were thoroughly enjoyable to the worm colony. Within seconds, the entire surface of the park was a mass of dirty, brown, soggy, writhing forms.

"He was still pleased, old Michael, and he began whistling a tune this time to accompany himself." " 'Jerusalem Boogie' to us, perhaps. But to the birds it meant that supper was ready."

On the 1976 tour for A Trick of the Tail, Mike Rutherford told a story to introduce the song.

On the 1977 tour for Wind & Wuthering, Phil Collins would tell Peter Gabriel's "Romeo and Juliet" story from "The Cinema Show" to introduce the song. In these stories, Juliet wore a "I Love Gary Gilmore" T-shirt and instead of saying "time for 'The Cinema Show'", Juliet said "I want to go because I'm hungry and 'Supper's Ready'".

During the 1982 tour, Collins told a story before the song. Often this story would tie in to the song itself, but on some occasions he told a Romeo and Juliet story instead.

During the 1982 Genesis reunion show, Gabriel told a story about a woman on a subway train (which he had told during the Foxtrot tour, and which had appeared on the Genesis Live album cover), slightly altered to segue into "Supper's Ready".

After 1982, only fragments of this song were played live by Genesis. During the first leg of the Invisible Touch tour in 1986, the band played the last two parts ("Apocalypse in 9/8", "As sure as eggs is eggs"). During the We Can't Dance tour in 1992, Collins suggested they play "Supper's Ready" in its entirety, but was voted down by Rutherford and Banks. Finally, on the Calling All Stations tour in 1998, Genesis performed an acoustic medley containing the first section.