Mick Barnard

Mick Barnard was a guitarist in the UK rock band, The Farm. He was also the guitarist of the band Genesis for a brief time, following the departure of founding member Anthony Phillips, the role for which he is perhaps best remembered today.

After leaving Genesis, Barnard embarked on a successful career in audio engineering, founding the Bel Digital Audio company in 1975.

Stint in Genesis

Genesis' final concert with the Trespass lineup (Tony Banks, Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford, Anthony Phillips, John Mayhew) was on 18 July 1970, after which Phillips left the band. From 6 August to 17 September 1970 they played concerts as a four piece. Soon after that, Mayhew was replaced by Phil Collins, and the band played as a four piece with Collins from 2 October to 23 October. Mick Barnard then joined the band. The Banks-Gabriel-Rutherford-Collins-Barnard lineup played shows from 3 November 1970 to 10 January 1971: a total of thirty concerts and one television appearance. Barnard was then replaced by Steve Hackett, and this new lineup played their first concert on 14 January 1971.

Barnard appeared with the band on their earliest TV appearance on a BBC Television programme called Disco 2. This was recorded on 14 November 1970. Gabriel sang live, but all the instrumentalists (including Barnard) mimed to their recorded tracks. This footage is now lost.

Tony Banks made the following comment about Barnard's guitar playing:

He was OK, but not really forceful enough. I remember when we had already auditioned Steve but were still rehearsing with Mick which wasn't a very nice thing to do, we were doing the end part of "The Musical Box" and he was playing this little guitar phrase over the top of it and we thought this was really good. So just as we were about to boot him out he did something quite good.