The Musical Box

The Musical Box presents
… and then there was PHIL – on an extended tour in May and June!

Cologne, September 21, 2026 – In 1978, Genesis embarked on their final tour featuring a technical stage show they had created and built entirely on their own: the now-legendary “Mirror Show,” complete with six gigantic mirrors that could move in every direction.

For three decades, the Canadian band The Musical Box has authentically reconstructed and recreated Genesis’s historic stage theater—as it was with Peter Gabriel—down to the smallest detail. With their new production, “And Then There Was Phil,” they now focus on the early years (1976–1980) of Phil Collins as the new frontman of Genesis and the beginning of the band’s rise to become one of the world’s most successful rock bands.
Performed on the original instruments with their usual uncompromising perfection and featuring all the legendary drum duets from the live shows of that era, the spectacular new production is based primarily on the technology of the “Mirror Show” from 1978, for which the six large mirror elements—freely movable via servo motors—were technically reconstructed and replicated on a 1:1 scale in collaboration with the original designer, Theo Botschiver. Combined with Genesis’s original laser effects from the 1970s, this brings the monumental light show—which could never be replicated in this form using modern Vari-Lites—back to life once again after half a century.

In “And Then There Was Phil,” The Musical Box deliberately focus exclusively on the then-new frontman Phil Collins, who would soon go on to become an international solo star. For this reason, the older songs by Peter Gabriel that were adapted by Phil Collins are largely omitted by design; instead, the most important and powerful new songs from the previous “A Trick of the Tail” and “Wind & Wuthering” tours are incorporated into the 1978 stage design —and, last but not least, a longer sequence from the 1980 Duke Tour, which was triumphantly celebrated by audiences nationwide at the UK premiere of “And Then There Was Phil” in 2026.

Technically, “And Then There Was Phil”—arguably The Musical Box’s most challenging production to date, even more complex than their Peter Gabriel-authorized revival of *The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway*—will in 2027 present the musical and visual quality of Genesis with Phil Collins during their years of reinvention in a more than impressive and flawless manner to an astonished audience across Europe.