The band Musical Box will perform songs from Genesis’ “Selling England by the Pound” album and other material at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, Feb. 10.
The Musical Box — the Montreal-based band that will perform at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, Feb. 10 — goes above and beyond the dedication of most tribute bands. The show the band will present in Montclair will not only focus on songs from Genesis’ 1973 album Selling England by the Pound, but will re-create Genesis’ theatrical Selling England by the Pound Tour shows of 1973 and 1974.
The band, remarkably, has earned the cooperation of Genesis itself in this endeavor; members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band’s organization have helped The Musical Box get both the sound and the look of the tour as accurate as possible. Peter Gabriel once said he took his children to a Musical Box show so “they could see what their father used to do.”
Musical Box member Sébastien Lamothe, who plays Mike Rutherford’s parts in the show, told Bob O’Donnell (DJ Easy Wind) of HomegrownRadioNJ.org: “Nowadays, of course, with YouTube, and so many people posting so many things, there’s more stuff available to have a reference. But when we started there was so little, and there were so many mysteries. … I wasn’t even sure what was the setlist from that tour. …
“I never saw the original tour: I was too young. And that’s true for everybody helping me and working with me, in this project. … So we figured out that the only way for us to do so would be for us to reproduce, or re-enact the events, and we’ve been pretty much swallowed up by the enormity of the task, and the huge, endless universe of the Genesis world, that we’re still rediscovering, every tour.
“So eventually, we got in touch with Genesis, and presumably they were happy with the way we were working, and the respect we showed for their past work. And because of that, they gave us a lot of access to a lot of stuff that no other acts or bands or individuals had.”
The Musical Box performs at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, Feb. 10 at 8 p.m. Visit wellmonttheater.com.
You can listen to the complete HomegrownRadioNJ.org interview here:
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