THE MUSICAL BOX

Taking their name from the 1971 track of the same name, The Musical Box formed in Montreal, Quebec in 1993 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the 1973 album Selling England by the Pound. The original band was a seven-piece, and incorporated visual effects and costumes that were in the original Genesis shows of the 1970s. With the addition of Denis Gagné as the new lead singer in 1995, the band reformed as a five-piece (mirroring the seventies-era Genesis) and put more emphasis on an accurate stage show, from the lights, costumes and in-between song banter of a classic Genesis concert. Gagné immersed himself in the role of Peter Gabriel, learning to play flute and shaving a bald spot in the front of his hairline to better emulate Gabriel's early-70s appearance. From 1993 to 2000 The Musical Box focused on the Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Selling England by the Pound shows. In 2000 The Musical Box purchased the rights from Peter Gabriel and Genesis to re-create The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Genesis helped The Musical Box greatly with this show staging by giving them copies of the 1,200 original slides. They also had access to the original slide operators who helped them put them back (more or less) into the correct order. In addition the band was granted full access to the original album master tapes so they could correctly reproduce the sound live on stage, even though Genesis themselves did not do this. The band's decision to exactly reproduce the sound of the original studio albums in a live environment caused some controversy especially within the Genesis hard-core fan community. Since 2001 The Musical Box has grown in popularity, and has performed large sold-out shows in Canada, the USA, Europe and South America. The band announced another world tour on 12 July 2007. This covered several countries in Europe and a number of midwestern and eastern US cities. The European leg of the tour was a selection of shows based on the Foxtrot and Selling England By The Pound tours, with both the white and black shows on the England Tour. It was reported to be the last time that Foxtrot based shows will be performed in Europe. The North American leg of the tour did not consist of any Foxtrot shows, but rather one Selling England "White Show" and one Selling England "Black Show" in most cities. The black and white shows feature the same setlist but very different set designs.