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Memorial Hall - Sheffield 15/10/03 |
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I have always been a little sceptical about tribute bands believing that you cannot beat the real thing. However, there is a great groundswell of interest and support of these type of bands these days, possibly because there are now so many bands that have split and where there is no possibility of them reforming possibly due to the death of key members or maybe because of major personal and artistic differences between members mean that there is no chance of these band even performing again live. Typical examples of these bands are The Beatles, Queen and Abba but as the interest in the music of these types of bands lives on, while the fans still would like the opportunity to see their favourite music performed live. Having been a Genesis fan for many years , I thought I would check out a tribute band to one of my favourite bands, a band with the name Regenesis. It is exactly thirty years since I saw Genesis live for the first time in October '73 and I thought seeing Regenesis' tribute to the band might be a good way to celebrate this thirty-year anniversary. I remember going to the Genesis gig in '73 at the Sheffield City Hall as a thirteen year old, by this time I had been to a few live gigs, but this was something different as the audience sat quietly listening to the band almost as if they listening to a classical recital. Peter Gabriel was the lead singer in those days and a young drummer called Phil Collins sat at the back of the stage in almost obscurity behind his kit as Gabriel, very much the front man and the major image of the band performed, making numerous costume changes. Some of his costumes were completely bizarre, one in particular included a fox's head that he wore above a woman's dress. Gabriel left the band in 1975 and Collins took over the vocals. Over a period of twenty years from '73 to '92 I must have seen the band about ten times. Twice at the City Hall in Sheffield, once in Manchester, once at the Knebworth festival in 1978, twice at Roundhay in Leeds, and a number of times at the NEC in Birmingham. Plus a one-off at the Milton Keynes Bowl when Peter Gabriel reunited with the band to perform and raise money to clear huge financial problems that Gabriel had suffered during the failure of his project WOMAD. This took place in the open air on a very wet October day in what quickly became a mud bath of an arena. The band continued until Phil Collins left the band in 1993 although Mike Rutherford & Tony Banks did release an album in the mid-nineties entitled "Calling All Stations" under the Genesis name which did very little commercially. Collins, Gabriel and Mike Rutherford (with Mike & the Mechanics) have all gone on to enjoy successful solo careers. Regenesis An audience of about 500 packed into the Sheffield Memorial Hall (a small venue located in the same building as the Sheffield City Hall) to see the band open their set with "Watcher of the Skies" from the "Foxtrot" album (no fox's head or dress in evidence here) followed by "The Return of The Giant Hogweed" through to classics like "The Musical Box", "Firth of Fifth" and the twenty minute marathon number "Suppers Ready". ReGenesis also played a number of tracks from the "Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" album, which sounded excellent and worked best visually as lead singer Tony Patterson wore the Rael-like eye make-up, plus short hair and leather jacket reflecting Gabriel's image of this period. (For those who don't know, Rael was a character that featured on the Lamb album). The band only played two numbers from the Collins (lead vocal) era, Entangled" from the "Trick of the Tail" album and "Afterglow" from "Wind and Wuthering" possibly because Patterson's Gabriel-like vocal sounded best when performing the band's early material. Patterson also flirted with some of the costumes that Gabriel used to wear on stage but I'm not sure if this quite worked, mind you, did it ever work. I remember Phil Collins being interviewed on TV recently saying how much he hated Gabriel's costumes and that he felt that the Gabriel's imagery on stage sometimes seemed to be more important than the music. This was a great night of nostalgia. At times if you closed your eyes during the set you genuinely might think you were at an early Genesis gig. Musically the band sounded very much like the original and Patterson's voice sounded uncannily like that of Peter Gabriel. The band closed a set of over two and a half hours with the classic encore number "The Knife". ReGenesis are almost constantly touring and are a must see to Genesis fans who particularly enjoyed the early period of the band. Links to: Regenesis Website - The Early Genesis Tribute Band Genesis (The Origin Band) - Official Web Site
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