Standing backstage at the Memorial Auditorium in Kitchener, Ontario, Phil Collins wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake. It was March 27, 1976, and the second night of Genesis’s tour supporting their new album A Trick Of The Tail. The last time they’d played in Canada, Collins was the band’s drummer, and Peter Gabriel their frontman. Now, Gabriel was gone, and Collins had taken his place.
Peter Gabriel was a natural showman who had used costumes, masks and dramatic mime to transform himself into the characters he sang about: he wore a flowing red dress and a fox’s head to illustrate The Musical Box, and a huge flower mask during Genesis’s biblical epic Supper’s Ready. Naturally, Phil Collins didn’t want to do the same, but he was still trying to fathom out what he could do.
