Before they became the sleek, stadium-conquering pop juggernaut of the eighties, Genesis were a delightfully strange beast. Long before I Can't Dance proved that at least two members of the band couldn't, indeed, dance, the prog pioneers were weaving dense, theatrical tapestries of pastoral English mythology, biblical allegory, and surrealist high art.
This was an era best represented by the classic five-piece lineup: keyboardist Tony Banks, bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford, guitarist Steve Hackett, drummer Phil Collins and frontman Peter Gabriel, a man who transformed rock music into avant-garde theatre. Gabriel variously sported a reverse mohican, a fox's head, a batwing gown, and the bulbous costume of the Slipperman, which looked more like a terrifying, highly-contagious skin condition than anything picked off the racks at the popular Kensington branch of Biba.
