When did Genesis step on stage for the very first time? The short answer: we’re not entirely sure. Two dates circulate — 23 September 1969 and 26 October 1969 — and both have evidence. Here’s a summary of what we know about the origins of Genesis live.
Setting the scene
Having formed in 1967 at Charterhouse School, the band, then consisting of Peter Gabriel (vocals), Tony Banks (keyboards), Anthony Phillips (guitar), Mike Rutherford (guitar/bass) and early drummers, had focused primarily on writing, rehearsing and recording rather than live performance. Their debut album, From Genesis to Revelation (1969), had little commercial impact, which arguably prompted them to take live performance more seriously. By the summer of 1969, their contract with producer Jonathan King expired. Drummer John Silver left the band and the remaining members plus new drummer John Mayhew rehearsed intensively at Anthony Phillips’s parents’ home and at a cottage near Wotton thanks to friend and roadie Richard Macphail.
According to band biographer Robin Platts, their first live gig “followed in September 1969.” Platts writes: “The band scraped together several hundred pounds to buy equipment, nearly half of which was spent on a Hammond L122 organ for Banks. In September 1969, they made their live debut at a teenager’s birthday party at the home of Mrs. Balme, a neighbour of the Gabriel family. It was a somewhat inauspicious venue for a band that had already released a major label album and three singles.”1
The two candidate dates
26 October 1969 is perhaps the more often cited date. According to the fan-site Genesis-News, the first live performance took place on Sunday 26 October 1969 at a private event in Surrey — “a birthday party in Chobham, Peter Gabriel’s home town”2. The story goes that they were hired for for the 21st-birthday party for Anthony Balme in “a villa called Garth House in Chobham”.3 The band were paid £25. The piece stresses that this date “was not planned”4 as a public concert but rather a private engagement, making it something of a prototype live show.
The alternative date of 23 September 1969 (or sometimes given as 22 or 23 September) appears in some sources.
Italian researcher Mino Profumo (2013) investigated the so-called “Mrs Balme’s Dance” party and traced the event to Garth House, Chobham, concluding ultimately in his update that the date was 26 October. Thus many earlier listings of 23 September appear to be mis-rememberings of the month rather than completely unfounded.
Which date is more likely?
If forced to pick, current research seems to favour 26 October 1969 as the first documented live appearance of Genesis. This detailed article on Genesis-News.com and the research by Italian Genesis historian Mino Profumo, 2010, later updated 2013, provides a specific location (Garth House, Philpot Lane, Chobham, Surrey – the Balme residence), an event (21st birthday party for Anthony Balme), a payment (£25), and a setlist reportedly handwritten by Peter Gabriel, making for compelling evidence.
Key takeaways from Profumo’s reseach:
- The so-called “Mrs Balme’s Dance” was a birthday party for Anthony Balme, son of David Edward Balme, a Royal Navy officer famous for capturing the German Enigma machine in 1941.
- The event took place at Garth House, Philpot Lane, Chobham, near Peter Gabriel’s family home “Deep Pool Farm”.
- Peter’s mother, Irene Allen Gabriel, told author Armando Gallo in the 1970s that “our neighbours threw a dance party for their children, and our boys went to play.”
- Initially, Gallo and others believed the date to be 23 September 1969, with the band paid £25, a big sum for them at the time.
- However, Profumo’s later investigation (including contact with the Gabriel family via the local vicar) led to confirmation that the correct date was Sunday, 26 October 1969.
- He also confirmed that Anthony Balme was born 27 October 1948, meaning his 21st birthday party would indeed have been the evening before, on 26 October.
- That would explain how the 23 September date entered circulation (perhaps from an early misremembering of the month).
Anthony Phillips remembers the first gig: “At that stage we hadn’t really rehearsed. It was towards the end of summer. We were still sort of semi-acoustic. We didn’t really have a proper live set then. It was just a kind of filling in on numbers from From Genesis to Revelation and I think we were doing a dew covers, as well. We hadn’t really started our proper drill live, as it were. It was one of these parties where people are just dancing. Nobody really listened to us, to be honest.”5
Drummer John Mayhew adds: “It was an entirely inappropriate party for a band like Genesis to play. They wanted a regular band, but Genesis wouldn’t know how to be a regular band.”6
What the first set looked like
From the Chobham performance (26 October), the setlist reportedly included songs from their debut album From Genesis To Revelation (1969) and demos. The articles list tracks such as “In the Beginning,” “The Serpent,” “Going Out to Get You,” and cover numbers like The Stumble, Black Sheep and Sitting on Top of the World. This reflects the band transitioning from pop/psychedelic roots toward the more adventurous texture they would soon embrace.
Anthony Phillips says, “I think Dusk and White Mountain might have been done at that party, because they were written in the summer.” He also recalls that the group played an unreleased song called Babies, which “was a thing of Peter’s and he was kind of left singing it by himself in the corner because nobody could hear him.”7
In conlusion
Genesis’s first gig, whatever the exact date, marks the moment when they shifted from a songwriting cooperative to a live performing machine. Live performance would become central to their identity: the theatrical stage shows of the Gabriel era, the massive stadium tours of the Collins era, and the medleys and technical sophistication of their later years all root back to that first step into public performance.
Here’s the takeaway:
- Genesis very likely played their debut live show on 26 October 1969 at a private event at Garth House in Chobham, Surrey.
- Some reliable sources, however, record a show around 23 September 1969 and may reference the same event with date confusion or an earlier informal gig.
- Until new evidence emerges, the best approach is to acknowledge both dates, give priority to the stronger documentation of October, and celebrate the fact that 1969 was the year Genesis moved onto the stage for the first time.
Whether September or October, it’s a moment worth marking for fans of Genesis, as the moment the band truly became a live act.
Title photo: Handwritten setlist by Peter Gabriel for Genesis’ first professional gig (Source)
Sources
Genesis Privat Gig: 23.09.1969 Mrs. Balme’s Dance.
Platts, Robin (2007): Genesis. Behind the lines, 1967-2007. Burlington, Ont., Canada: Collectors Guide Pub.
Quell’ENIGMA che ci porta al Mrs. Balme’s Dance.