The Musical Box (band)

Canadian Genesis tribute band

The Musical Box are a Canadian tribute band formed in Montreal, Quebec in 1993 who recreate performances by the English rock band Genesis during the 1970s. The current line up is formed of singer and performer Denis Gagné (Peter Gabriel), guitarist François Gagnon (Steve Hackett), bassist Sébastien Lamothe (Mike Rutherford), keyboardist Ian Benhamou (Tony Banks), and drummer Marc Laflamme (Phil Collins).

The Musical Box were formed in 1993 in Montreal, Quebec in Canada, and take their name from the song of the same name from Genesis's third studio album, Nursery Cryme (1971). The band reformed as a five piece, mirroring the member count that Genesis had at the time. The new line up marked the beginning of the band concentrating on staging Genesis shows more accurately, including lights, costume, and recreating Gabriel's on stage persona and dialogue. This time round, the band wished to recreate the two hour show as closely as possible. They observed silent footage of the band performing, gathered magazine articles and audience member accounts of the shows, and Banks granted them access to The Farm, the band's recording studio in Surrey, to hear the original 24 track master tape of the album so they could isolate each track and take apart passages in the music they deemed too difficult to recreate. In early 2007, plans for The Musical Box to stage a recreation of Genesis's 1976 tour in support of A Trick of the Tail (1976) were in the tentative stages. This marked the first time the band performed Genesis material not from the Gabriel led era. The tour began in September 2008, and featured Gregg Bendian as their second drummer in the part of Bill Bruford. As the 1976 tour marked the debut of Collins on lead vocals, the role of Collins was played on stage by Gagné on vocals and Marc Laflamme on the drums and second vocals. The Musical Box took a break in 2010. In 2011 and 2012 the band toured The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, this time with keyboardist Michel Cloutier. In 2013 and 2014, the band toured Selling England by the Pound in celebration of the album's fortieth anniversary, with some dates replaced with their Foxtrot show. The tour was then extended and performed until early 2018, with some dates featuring the "Black Show". From late 2018 to early 2019, the band toured a new production titled, A Genesis Extravaganza, in celebration of the band's twenty fifth anniversary. The show was a three act performance, featuring music spanning from From Genesis to Revelation (1969) to Wind & Wuthering (1976). In late 2019 and early 2020, they will tour a sequel to the acclaimed A Genesis Extravaganza, titled, Extravaganza Volume 2. The setlist of this production will span from Trespass (1970) up to And Then There Were Three (1978), marking a venture into the trio era for the first time in the band's history.

In The Buffalo News, Jeff Miers wrote: "The Musical Box elevates the concept of the 'tribute' band to a new level".

The Musical Box is the only Genesis tribute band that has received active support and permission from the real group. Collins wrote a positive introduction of the band for one of their tour programs,

The Musical Box's setlists are identical to those played by Genesis during their early tours. The Foxtrot shows included songs from the albums Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot: "Watcher of the Skies", "Can Utility and the Coast Liners", "The Musical Box", "Get 'em Out by Friday", "Supper's Ready" and "The Return Of The Giant Hogweed", as well as two encores: "The Knife" and "The Fountain of Salmacis". The Selling England setlist comprised six of the eight songs from the titular album ("After the Ordeal" and "Aisle of Plenty" were not performed), and a selection of live favourites: "Watcher of the Skies", "The Musical Box", "Supper's Ready" and "The Knife". "Horizons" and "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" were sometimes played instead of "More Fool Me" and "The Knife", respectively. The Lamb shows comprised the entirety of the 1974 album, plus "The Musical Box" and "Watcher of the Skies" or "The Knife". The A Trick of the Tail shows comprised the following numbers: "Dance on a Volcano", a medley from The Lamb ("The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway"/"Fly on a Windshield"/"Broadway Melody of 1974"/"Carpet Crawlers"), "The Cinema Show", "Robbery, Assault and Battery", "White Mountain", "Firth of Fifth", "Entangled/Squonk", "Supper's Ready", "I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)" and "Los Endos" with an encore of "It/Watcher of the Skies". "The Cinema Show" featured extensive double drumming from Collins and Bruford as did "Supper's Ready", and "Los Endos". "Watcher of the Skies" was a short instrumental version merging the beginning and ending sections of the song.