Selling England
The Musical Box recreates epic Genesis concert Friday at the Garde
Climb inside The Musical Box. You may find you don't want to leave.
A Canadian band that artfully and painstakingly recreates the colorful and visionary tours of Genesis from when the iconic progressive rock band was fronted by Peter Gabriel, The Musical Box will be at the Garde Arts Center on Friday. They'll duplicate Genesis' stage show from their 1974 American tour in support of the "Selling England by the Pound" album — known as the "Black Show" because the dominant color of the set differed from the white theme in Europe.
If that sounds finicky in its attention to detail, you have no idea what The Musical Box has gone through to present astonishing recreations of some of the most visionary rock concerts ever conceptualized. In addition to "Selling England," The Musical Box also tours behind Genesis' "Foxtrot" and "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" recordings.
Some context is probably required. Pop music fans routinely expect multi-million dollar presentations from arena headliners like Lady Gaga, U2, Muse, Kanye West and Katy Perry. It's amazing stuff, but there can also be a "bigger is better" element that can overwhelm rather than enhance the music.
These same fans might be astounded if they could go back 45 years and see what Genesis accomplished with a minimal budget, Gabriel's Halloween-worthy collection of improvised masks and, essentially, what started as a sense of onstage desperation.
At that point, long before they became a multi-platinum pop act fronted by Phil Collins, Genesis wrote extending, flowing, beautiful and lyrically intricate and musically complex songs that required precise instrumentation and virtuosity, often demanding more than the equipment of the time could handle. As such, concerts were often interrupted so the musicians — guitarist Steve Hackett, keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist Mike Rutherford and drummer/vocalist Collins — could tune instruments or finesse notoriously unreliable Mellotrons and synthesizers.
Rather than break the momentum or endure
embarrassing silences, Gabriel began to invent between-tune backstories to augment the song lyrics — oft-bizarre and brainy narratives about mythology, Miltonian discourse, folklore, sex and all sorts of stuff reflective of their years at a proper English boarding school — and then gradually added elaborate costumes for even more context. The spoken-word bits and exotic visuals became part of the productions rather than possible distractions — and what Genesis brought to the stage was an utterly distinctive step in concert evolution.
When Gabriel left after "The Lamb" and Collins became the out-front vocalist, there was no way he could replicate Gabriel's personae and he wisely didn't try. Genesis went on to much greater success, but it's also true that a remarkable and influential slice of rock history vanished with precious little film or video evidence to capture the greatness.
At least until The Musical Box came along. The group was founded 20 years ago by bassist/guitarist Sébastian LaMothe and friends for the purest of reasons.
"We simply wanted to replicate those shows because we didn't see them," say
LaMothe in a phone conversation last week. "From day one, we just wanted to piece together answers to questions like: How did they do this, and why did they choose this set list, and how did Gabriel come up with those stories while the rest of them were tuning? But it became an ongoing puzzle. "
Thinking back on two decades in the Box, LaMothe laughs. "I was pretty naïve," he says. "We're from the French part of Canada, and Gabriel and Genesis were tremendous influences on the art scene there. In a way, we're the victims of our times because, as young musicians, we were mystified by the whole majesty of Genesis's music as well as the mystic elements of the performances. There was no YouTube. All we had were those iconic images of Gabriel in the flower mask or the fox head. You could see the photos of that first live
album, and musically and visually it had an enormous impact. But we had no idea what we were getting into."
The sorcery of the casual idea to recreate the Genesis tours is that, the more LaMothe and his band mates — now including vocalist Denis Gagné, guitarist François Gagnon, keyboardist Guillaum Rivard and drummer Marc Laflamme — learned and discovered, the more they wanted to know. The music itself is incredibly complex and highly influenced by classical compositions and British folk.
But where contemporaries like King Crimson, Yes and Gentle Giant could get fairly abstruse in terms of remaining accessible to general pop audiences, Genesis wrote lovely, pastoral melodies and created charmingly odd story lines. Many of these tunes are part of the "Selling England" tour, including, from that album, "Dancing with the Moonlit Night," "I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)," "Firth of Fifth," "The Battle of Epping Forest" and "The Cinema Show." Also represented from earlier recordings are epics like "Supper's Ready," "The Musical Box," "Watcher of the Skies" and "Horizon."
"That's part of what was so amazing about them," LaMothe says. "The riffs and structures were extremely ingenious and brilliant, but it was those specific five guys and their approach to musicianship and technology and sound — and it sounded lovely. But they never rested; they continually pushed their own limits. There was no end of headaches. We were obsessed with the authenticity factor and trying to pull a rabbit out of the hat and give people the illusion they were watching the original show."
LaMothe says they studied and obsessed over details, meeting across the globe with fans who might have taken pictures of those old tours or even eight millimeter film. Songs like the iconic "Supper's Ready" or "The Cinema Show" required insane study. "It took us years to understand the complexities and the multi-tracking and the different tunings and how they'd pull of these pastel chord voicings or keyboard sounds. But the more we figured out, the more we wanted to know."
Fortunately, their efforts did not go unnoticed. They have a solid international following that routinely fills theaters, not to mention the official endorsement from all of the original Genesis members. Hackett and Collins have separately joined the Box onstage, and Gabriel is quoted on the band's website saying, "I saw them ... so my children could see what their father did back then."
More than that, over the years, the Genesis organization has literally opened the archives. A forgotten box in the original Genesis farmhouse, where the band lived, rehearsed and recorded in the early days, contained the entire light show from "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" as well as color slides from the "Selling England" tour that provided valuable details.
Later, LaMothe says, "We eventually got to visit the farmhouse and listen to the original studio tapes of the album recordings. For years, the secrets of the recordings — how they bumped tracks and what they actually played — could drive me nuts. We've always been obsessed with the authenticity. It's why we do this, after all, and to be able to go from approximating the parts to playing them exactly was huge."
After thinking for a few moments, LaMothe says he regards the "Selling England" show as the flagship of The Musical Box repertoire.
"It's the ultimate show for fans of that era because there are songs from all of the albums to that point, so they get to experience some big historic moments. From the Genesis perspective, that's at the point they were really exploding and had become a really, really good band. A lot of fans regard (subsequent album) 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway' as the pinnacle — and it is brilliant," he says.
"At the same time, though, by 'The Lamb,' there was a lot of attention and pressure on Gabriel, and there was thought that the musical aspect had become secondary. He agreed to tour 'The Lamb' but told the band before it started he was going to leave when it was over, so there was this very weird vibe the whole time. 'Selling England' was much more positive, and the band was at the height of its musical and visual power." He laughs. "To have support from those guys is very flattering. You can't own genius, but they allow us to stand in the shadow."