Genesis Extravaganza ‘The Musical Box’ Excites a Small Easter Crowd

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Genesis formed in 1967 with Peter Gabriel as the lead singer. During their formative years, the lineup evolved until it became Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, and Steve Hackett. In 1975 after recording six albums, Peter Gabriel left Genesis to pursue his own dream. The Musical Box is an amazing tribute band that recreates these early years of Genesis.

One Night Only Productions brought The Musical Box to The Nugget in Sparks on Easter Sunday night. Despite radio and television advertisements and lots of social media input, unfortunately, the theater was not very full. There’s no doubting that Easter Sunday was a huge obstacle to overcome for this event. Nevertheless, the band did not hold back. They brought Genesis to life like I never thought was possible.

Being one of progressive rock’s early pioneers, Genesis’ music is anything but simple to play. The current makeup of The Musical Box is an absolutely phenomenal group of musicians. Denis Gagné (“Peter Gabriel“) 1995*, François Gagnon (“Steve Hackett“) 2004*, Sébastien Lamothe (“Mike Rutherford“) 1993*, Ian Benhamou (“Tony Banks“) 2018*, and Bob St-Laurent (“Phil Collins“) 2018* never missed a beat. Their execution of extremely demanding compositions was jaw-dropping. Denis’s presentation of Peter Gabriel was great. His voice was perfect, his movements were spot on, and his whole demeanor was outstanding. I was most concerned about that being pulled off properly, and it was. (*member since)

A special shout out to their stage technician who, with perfect timing, grabbed guitars from players’ hands just as they were finished being played, set up others that were needed in moments, and even played miscellaneous percussion in the shadows.

Second only to Genesis’ landmark compositions was Peter Gabriel’s costumes and stage performances. The costumes and theatrics began as a response to comments early on that, although Genesis was great in concert, they were not very interesting to watch. Denis Gagné (Peter Gabriel) avoided most of the outlandish costumes on this evening, but he did satisfy the crowd by breaking out the red dress and fox head costume from the Foxtrot tour at the end of the show.  

I grew up on this music, and I was entranced by the performance. It took me back to the 70’s and 80’s when my musical comrades and I created our own songs inspired by Genesis, among others. The Musical Box tours the world putting on their shows, often to soldout houses. It’s unfortunate that our turn was on Easter Sunday. They deserved a full house. If we are ever fortunate enough to have them come our way again, perhaps that’s what they will get.