The Musical Box - The Final Lamb Tour 2006

De Vereeniging, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
12 January 2006

In my opinion not only a few progressive rock fans know that there is a band that being authorized by Genesis members and Peter Gabriel to reenact the old time Genesis shows. The band is called The Musical Box, originally from Canada, which was since 1993 performing Genesis shows from Foxtrot until The Lamb era. Their tours were mostly successful, with many sold out and extra shows, and particularly the recent The Lamb Lies on Broadway tour in Europe was appreciated very well by the European fans.

The old and present Genesis members also appreciate the existence of The Musical Box. Steve Hackett once played with them for an encore, and in 2005 in Geneva Phil Collins sat behind the drum kit to perform The Musical Box (ah yes..this is a song title :)).

Realizing these facts, I grabbed my chance to watch them during their final Lamb Tour in Europe. They planned to perform three shows in Holland (in Amsterdam, Den Haag, and Nijmegen). Based on the show date and location, I chose the show in Nijmegen. The hall (De Vereeniging) has classic appearance that I thought can give more old time nuances for the show.

For me watching The Lamb in live actually would never be possible, because the original show was dated before my birth date :). So this show was really something worth it, also because I consider The Lamb is one of Genesis best albums.

So there I was, entering De Vereeniging with my wife from a cold winter night in Nijmegen. The hall lobby already quite full of people but the environment was relax, no rushing because everybody had numbered seat. I spent some times looking at tour souvenirs, t-shirts, tour book, CD of David Myers (the keyboard player of The Musical Box) performing Genesis songs in piano. I bought a shirt with The Slipperman image at the front side and at the Lamia image with list of countries visited in the tour at the back side. Then we entered the hall.

The hall was really old-fashioned, rectangle-shaped with arranged chairs facing the stage and balcony seats at the three rectangle sides. The stage was already set for the show, all the will-be-used instruments already placed. Most of the audiences were quite old, I think around 40-45 in age. So we were quite the youngest ones there. Our seats was at the sixth row in the right section from the stage, pretty close and nice view of the stage, except that the people sitting in front of us were quite tall. I waited impatiently for the show to start.

(Note that here I refer to original Genesis members name, for the sake of perfect imagination of Genesis show.)
Then they entered! It was very real, Peter Gabriel narrated the intro story about Rael and then they performed The Lamb Lies on Broadway. The lighting and slides show were exact replicas of the original show, even the costumes also were 70's style.
The performed songs were followed the original order of the album, and Peter Gabriel changed costumes for several songs. The musical skills were perfect and it was very nice to watch the old instruments being played. I enjoyed the most watching Mike Rutherford (left-handed, but with same skill) with double neck guitar and the bass pedals, and Phil Collins (almost identical, bald, left-handed, and similar voice) with the complex drums and percussions set. And off course the frontman, with unique vocal style and theatrical expressions.

The highlights were Fly On A Windshield (with Peter's smoking style during 'smoking Winston cigarettes' part), Cuckoo Cocoon (Peter only had his head visible, singing and playing flute on the stage floor), In The Cage (the best song..nice drums sound), and sensual slideshows during Counting Out Time.

After The Chambers of 32 Doors, Peter Gabriel narrated the story again for the last time before the second half of the show. The second part was more theatrical, with colorful Lamia cone, Slipperman character (Peter needed to pump some balloons for this one), and off course the wonderful-powerful It. At the ending part of this song the played instruments were only drums, bass guitar, and keyboard, and it struck me to see only those three existed Genesis members (you know who they are!).

After the complete Lamb Lies album, they performed The Musical Box and Watcher of the Skies as encores. The Musical Box was brilliantly played, with introduction narration about Henry and Cynthia, perfect instrumental parts, and nice ending with Henry as an old man (with the old man voice singing ...she's a lady, she is mine..brush back your hair, and let me get to know your flesh... until collapsed after repeated now, now, now, now).

Watcher of the Skies sounded much more majestic than the studio version. Peter Gabriel wore a colorful robe and a mask, acting as the watcher. With powerful bass and drums, this song was really the best one for closing the show.

I conclude it was a brilliant show. I expect to watch The Musical Box again in 2007, performing Selling England by the Pound as their farewell tour.

The Musical Box:

François Gagnon as Steve Hackett
Electric guitar
6 strings acoustic guitar
12 strings acoustic guitar

Sébastien Lamothe as Mike Rutherford
Bass
12 strings electric guitar
Bass pedals
Back vocals

Denis Gagné as Peter Gabriel
Vocals
Flute
Oboe
Percussions

Martin Levac as Phil Collins
Drums
Percussions
Vocals

David Myers as Tony Banks
Keyboards
12 strings acoustic guitar
Back vocals

Napoli and Pompeii

December 29-31, 2005

This is the last part of the story about the Italy trip after the first part in Toscana and the second part in Rome.
After a rainy morning in Rome, we drove to Napoli. The weather on the road was not getting better, even at some points we had snow. Entering Napoli, once again we were confronted with complex highways and only after several wrong directions we could find the correct way to the hotel in Castel Volturno, a village near the coast, about 45 minutes driving from Napoli. On the way there we drove via nice landscape of Napoli. The city of Napoli is located on a bay and it has hills surrounding the city. The highway was on the hills so we could see the whole city.

We arrived at the hotel around six in the evening. After a quick rest we went out for dinner. We asked to the receptionist at the hotel about the nice food, and we were suggested to go to Pozzuoli, a small town between Castel Volturno and Napoli. We went to a restaurant in the main road in Pozzuoli after we rounded the city hopelessly trying to find the harbour. The menu covers quite wide selection of pizzas and pastas, as well as seafood dishes. We ordered combination of pizza, pasta, and fish. The food was nice and we could see how the pizzas were made from the dough until finished from the oven. After dinner we went back to the hotel because it was raining the whole evening so we would not be able to enjoy anything in Pozzuoli.

In the following day, we spent most of the times in Pompeii. We started early in the morning and had our breakfast at a small cafe in Pompeii. After that we entered the famous historical ruined Roman city of Pompeii that buried under the ashes from the eruption of Vesuvius. We started from the west part of the complex, where the amphitheater is located. The amphitheater was used by Pink Floyd to film the Live at Pompeii.

Teatro Grande, Pompeii

We explored the area further, looking at what used to be houses and streets. There were also big buildings, such as the theaters, the gladiator barrack, the city square, and old temples. In the end we visited the Villa of Mysteries, one of the big villas in the area. It was a nice big building that used to be owned by upper class people in Roman time.

We went out from the excavation area around lunch time, and we had quick lunch in our way back to the car. And then we had to decide where to go next. The options were to visit the coast area of Amalfi or to climb the Vesuvius. We chose the Vesuvius, and there we went. Unfortunately we could not climb until very high because at a point the road was covered by snow and our car could not perform very well on snowy road. Finally we drove downhill, back to Napoli.

The Forum, Pompeii

That night we stayed in a hotel in the city of Napoli. It was raining for the whole evening, so we only went out to the main streets of Napoli and had a dinner. It was not a very nice city to visit actually, very crowded and very busy traffic.

And that was it. The following morning we took the train back to Rome to catch our flight back to Eindhoven.

Rome

27-29 December 2005

This is the continuation of previous story about our Italy trip. The first part can be found here.

After visiting nice cities in Toscana, we visited Rome, the famous beautiful city and the capital of Italy. The first time we entered the city, Rome reminded me about Jakarta, with the busy highways and traffic jams. Luckily we reserved a hotel that is not located in the city center so we did not need to spend hours on the streets. The hotel provides shuttle bus to the nearest metro station so it was convenient for us.

We arrived some times before dinner time in the hotel, so we took the metro to the city center to have dinner. It was rainy in the whole evening so we could not do much sightseeing. We decided to stop at Barberini metro stop, and had dinner in the Hard Rock Cafe at Via Veneto. The street is a famous street of Rome, full of high-class restaurants and hotels. The HRC was full of people as usual, and we needed to wait for about half an hour before got our table.

After dinner we hurrily walked back to the metro to catch the last shuttle bus to the hotel. Once we reached the platform it turned out that there was no metro at our direction. We went back to the street and luckily could get a bus to Termini station, the main Rome station and the only metro junction. We managed to take the metro heading to the hotel and catched the last shuttle bus to the hotel. But that was quite a tense evening, first night in Rome and struggled about the transportation.

We started early on the second day because we had an important appointment with an important person...the Pope Benedict XVI! We attended the papal audience that is held every Wednesday morning. Before visiting the Vatican we were split, me and my wife went to Termini station to buy train ticket for next trip between Naples and Rome and the other two of us went to Santa Susanna to collect the ticket for the papal audience. We spent quite some times to obtain the ticket, and when we arrived at Vatican it was already quite crowded, especially the queue to the Vatican Museum.

St. Peter's Basilica

Even though, we still managed to stop in a souvenir shop to buy rosaries and postcards before entering the famous St. Peter's square. The front-half of the enormously wide square was arranged of chairs for the audience, and almost half of the area was already full of people. To avoid undesirable things, we needed to pass metal detector before entering the square.

After little struggle finding best place, we managed to get seats quite in the back rows, already near the obelisk at the center of the square. The stage at the entrance of St. Peter's Basilica looked so far from our seat. But it was still a good place because it was near the alley that was the entrance route of the Pope.

We waited about an hour in the cold windy square before finally the Pope arrived. As being reported in the medias, he was wearing camauro, the traditional Pope's cap that was used the last time in 1963. Applaused by the crowd, the Pope sat on the stage and begun the audience procession. It basically contained welcome messages from the Pope to pilgrim groups from all over the world. The introduction messages were announced by several different priests in different languages and then for each languages the Pope greeted the groups, which were always replied by the targetted groups. We could follow the speeches on the large screens on both sides of the square.

Swiss Guard, the army of Vatican

After the greetings, the Pope met one of the pilgrim groups on the stage, meanwhile the audience started leaving the square. We left the square and went to the post office to buy Vatican stamps for sending postcards.
From Vatican city we went to Castel Sant'Angelo, a castle on the side of Tiber river. In front of the castle lays Ponte Sant'Angelo, a beatiful bridge crossing the Tiber. At both sides of the bridge we could see angel statues designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. While crossing the bridge we could see the St. Peter's Basilica in a distance. It was a very nice view of the Tiber, the castle, and the dome of basilica from the other side of the bridge. The only minus point was that the bridge was full of tents selling souvenirs so we could not really expose the beauty of the bridge.

Castel Sant'Angelo

Heading further away from Vatican to the center of Rome, we stopped for lunch at a small pizza restaurant. One thing to be noticed in Rome, in every restaurants there is additional service fee on top of the food price. The extra can be quite big and shocking if we are not prepared :).
Back to the journey, after the nice warm pizzas we walked further to Piazza Navona. This is a nice crowded square hidden by surrounding buildings. There are two fountains at both ends of the square and one main fountain in the middle. The main fountain, Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers), is another Bernini's creation. Symbolizing four great rivers (Nile, Ganges, Danube, and Rio de Plata), the fountain has statues of river gods, animals, and on top of it an obelisk with a dove at the top. The other two fountains are Fontana di Nettuno and Fontana del Moro, less spectacular then the main fountain but still beautiful and fit very will with the piazza.

Fountain of the Four Rivers, Piazza Navona

From Piazza Navona we walked via the small streets of Rome to the Pantheon. The huge building was originally a Roman temple and converted into a Christian church in the seventh century. The entrance is constructed by pillars and the main building is round shaped roofed by dome with a central hole (oculus), which serves as the natural light source. The inside walls were full with statues and paintings. Despite the building size, I found the Pantheon was not so attractive.

From the Pantheon we went to the Roman Forum. We passed the monument of Victor Emmanuel II and Cordonata staircase before reaching Capitoline Hill, one of the hills in Rome with a temple from Roman era. The Forum was located behind the hill and we had a nice view of the complete area from the hill.
Entering the Forum, we walked around the historical ruins, looked at the remaining pilars of old temples. At one point we met a free guided tour so we joined the tour to hear explanation about the ruins. After the tour was finished we walked through Via Sacra to the Colosseum. It was almost dark when we reached at the Colloseum, and then it was suddenly raining, so we rushed to a bus stop and hopped in to the bus.

Roman Forum

In the evening we back to Vatican to visit the St. Peter's Basilica. The interior of the basilica was spectacular. It was very big and full of beautiful masterpiece arts, such as the pieta by Michelangelo, the canopy over the altar by Bernini and many statues and chapels. Unfortunately in the evening we could not enter the dome.

From Vatican we went back to city center and visited the famous Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. The area surrounding the Spanish Steps are shopping streets so it was nice to walk there until reaching the Trevi fountain. The fountain is large, with nicely crafted wall with statues about Neptune. It was crowded with people, because the fountain is famous for throwing coin legend. One coin could ensure you will return to Rome.
From the fountain we took the bus and then the metro to back to the hotel.

Trevi Fountain

The last day in Rome, we planned to visit the Vatican Museums in the morning. But the queue was incredibly long, so we cancelled the plan and we decided to enter the Colloseum to spend the morning. There was a guided tour inside the Colloseum, which explained the history and several different materials used to build the huge gladiator arena. We explored several levels of the tribune before we went out and back to the hotel to collect the car.

The Colloseum

It was the last trip in Rome before we continued to Naples and Pompeii.

Firenze, Pisa, Siena

December 25-27, 2005

This is the first part of our Italy trip in the end of year 2005. We flew from Amsterdam to Pisa on the Christmas day, and traveled by train from Pisa to Firenze, where we stayed overnight. The weather on the first day was not so good. It was cloudy in Pisa, and it turned to rain when we arrived at Firenze. It was already dark at Firenze, and most places were closed because of the Christmas day, so we just walked to find our hotel. The hotel was located on a very quiet street. Fortunately we saw several restaurants near the hotel, so at least we knew where we could have the dinner :).
That evening we had two dinners. The first one was a quick one, a take away Chinese food. Well, nothing special about Chinese food in Italy :). As a supper we had pizza in a restaurant exactly in front of the hotel.

We started the second day in Firenze with entering Accademia Gallery, one of the famous museums in Firenze. The Accademia has several beautiful paintings from Botticelli and sculptures from Michelangelo. But the highlight of the Accademia is one of the Michelangelo's masterpieces, the sculpture of David. The tall, handsome, and very detail image of the legendary biblical king that crafted from white marble is located at the end of the hall that also contains others Michelangelo's works.

After the Accademia we walked heading the Duomo (cathedral) of Firenze. The marbled-wall church is a beautiful building, with a big dome and tall bell tower. The marbles are multi colours so they give pretty patterns for the wall.
From the Duomo we walked along the shopping streets of Firenze until reaching the Arno river. The Arno cuts the old part of the city and there are several bridges connecting two sides. The most famous bridge is Ponte Vecchio with wooden shop buildings on the bridge.

Ponte Vecchio and Arno River, Firenze

Crossing the Arno, we saw the Pitti Palace but we did not enter because of insufficient time. We crossed back the Arno via the Ponte Vecchio and walked via the buildings of Uffizi Gallery to reach the Piazza della Signoria. This piazza contains several statues such as a copy of David in front of the Palazzo Vecchio (the town hall) and a fountain of Neptune.
After spending half day wandering the old town of Firenze, we collected the rented car that we used for the rest of the trip. After a quick lunch near the car pool, we drove to Piazza Michelangelo, a park on hill on the other side of Arno. The view from there was very nice, we could see the city landscape and spot the famous landmarks that we had just visited.

View of Firenze from Piazza Michelangelo

From Firenze we drove to Pisa, of course to see the famous leaning tower :). We went straight to the Campo dei Miracoli, the location of the tower together with the Duomo and the baptistery. The site was full of tourists as usual. We just took some photos there, entered the Duomo, and then left the place. Originally we planned to climb the tower but the waiting time was two hours, too long for us.

The famous leaning tower of Pisa

From Pisa we went to Siena, the end destination for the day. We stayed overnight at Badesse, a village near Siena. After checked in at the hotel, we visited the Siena to have dinner. This time we had no pizza, but we found a restaurant that more specialized to the wine list. We ordered several dishes with a bottle red wine. Yes, the wine was nice, although the food was not very special.

The following day we visited a village called Castellina in Chianti to buy wine. It was a nice village, and we visited one wine shop. We bought several bottles and did a short visit to the wine cellar.

From Castellina we drove to Siena. Although not as big as Firenze, the old town of Siena is a nice place. We had lunch in a restaurant near Piazza del Campo, the town square. After lunch we visited Palazzo Chigi Saracini, a beautiful house with several nice paintings, pictures, and musical instruments. The palace is currently housing the Accademia Musicale Chigiana foundation.

Piazza del Campo, Siena

From Palazzo Chigi we visited the Duomo of Siena. It resemblances similar wall patterns as the Duomo in Firenze, only simpler and in general it is smaller. The interior is nice, with beautiful arches on all sides of the wall and on top of it there are faces of popes. At one side we visited the Piccolomini library, a room to store the old choir books, which full of frescoes on the wall about the story of Pope Pius II. Near the entrance to the library we found The Piccolomini altar with sculptures by Michelangelo.

From the Duomo we strolled along the old stony alleys of Siena before we back to the car and drove further to the south...heading to the famous Rome city.