All Tourdates 2007

Fanreviews
Overview

BONN

MANNHEIM

SAARBRÜCKEN

STUTTGART

FRANKFURT

BREMEN

NIJMEGEN

DEN HAAG

MAINZ

BERLIN

DUISBURG

ZÜRICH

ROME

MILAN

MADRID

LISBON

CROYDON

PORTSMOUTH

LONDON

PARIS

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The Musical Box - Milan 2007

Selling England by The Pound live at the Teatro della Luna in Milan (20/02/2007)

...an offence to simply call them a cover-band!

flower The Musical Box is back in Milan at the beautiful Teatro della Luna, a new venue just behind the more famous Forum Assago where many outstanding artists performed in the past including Genesis themselves, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins.
In the dressing room before the show the atmosphere is happy and relaxed, especially when the german promoter Winfried announces another sold out show after the Rome show and an almost certain final tour leg in November with more dates featuring the black Selling show and few Foxtrot shows. A little help for Denis about the correct spelling of the original Gabriel Italian introductions and it’s time to go: the 1700 crazy Italians are hungry for another magnificent trip down memory lane, when Genesis had the power to cast a magic spell all around the country in the Seventies.
Apart a little PA failure in the first opening Watcher Of The Skies chords, the show goes faultless as usual with The Musical Box better than ever in the painstaking reproduction of the original Genesis masterpieces. A welcome surprise is keyboard player Dave Myers wearing a wig which helps him, being bald, to look physically more like Tony Banks. Also guitar player Francois Gagnon wears a wig and added moustaches to his face to a better resemblance with Steve Hackett, in the company of the famous Strawberries jacket. The audience had typical italian reactions to the best tunes, applause in the middle of the songs (Dancing With The Moonlit Knight, The Cinema Show) and wild hysteria at the end of epics like Firth Of Fifth, The Musical Box and of course Supper’s Ready. Here in Milan the pyro explosion after 9/8 is performed in full while in Rome the firemen didn’t gave the permission for security reasons.
A guy near me, who saw Genesis in Turin back in 1974, is literally crying for the huge emotions the Canadians evoke him: it’s the first time he sees TMB and he can’t believe to his eyes. After the encore, a rousing The Knife, Martin, Dave and Francois arrive in the foyer to meet people and kindly sign programmes and posters: I can’t miss it as a long time friend and collaborator of this amazing ensamble, which is an offence to call simply a cover band..

Autor: Mino Profumo, Italy

This time he shoutet "the Knife"

flower Fate would have it I could attend the concert in Milan. It seems I had picked just the right time to visit my girl-friend in Italy (Genoa, to be precise). Making the short trip to Milan was a perfect idea.
I had called Winfried in Germany so I knew we would have tickets. Upon arrival at the Teatro della Luna we picked up our tickets and had beer and pizza to adjust to the events to come.
The concert hall is not a brick and mortar building but a tent construction (albeit a very stable one) that has something of a tube. The rows rise from the stage so that everybody has perfect sight.
The concert began at 9pm which is typical for Italy and much more comfortable than the earlier beginnings at home.
Just before the show began there was an announcement. A woman announced in Italian that TMB were going to play two final shows in November. What a pleasant surprise! Let’s go to Milan ;-)
When TMB entered they encountered huge rounds of applause. Italian audiences are so appreciative and always very enthusiastic. They applaud loudly at every opportunity – even during the songs.
Denis Gagné took the audience by storm when he made the announcements in Italian. Since I now know all the introductions it was a treat to hear them in different languages.
The show ranks among those where the band displayed the most joy at playing. Only occasional dropouts of Denis’ microphone spoiled the enjoyment slightly. I personally enjoyed the new variety of the Supper’s Ready story. At the point when Martin is supposed to play the drums, Denis says something like “Fuckin’ far out … the trapperboy … the one and only.” He later told me that he had found this variant only last summer on a Genesis recording and found it so cool that he decided to use it.
The stewards tried to keep people from making photos by blinding them with their flashlights. I found that both rather aggressive and annoying.
Most impressive was the way Denis introduced the encore. While he usually announces “The Knife” in a dry voice, he this time shouted it at the top of his lungs. This was the first time I heard it this way.
About the sound. Teatro della Luna is suited very well to TMB concerts. It all had a very airy yet saturated quality. I do not thinke, however, that the sound engineer did as good a job as the one TMB had for the previous tour. I think he adds to much echo. Of course mileage may vary, it’s just a personal impression I have had several times so far.
After the show Martin and David came out and signed autograms for the fans. There were whole families who wanted to have their photo taken with him – another example of Italian enthusiasm.