“Better singer”: Tony Banks names the best live singer for Genesis
Whenever any band plays a show, no one has more pressure on them than the lead singer. Everyone has come to sing along to their favourite songs, and while it’s easy to forgive a bum note by the bass player or a lacklustre performance, it’s hard to sing enough when the person with the microphone doesn’t have everything together. Although Genesis had a pretty spotless track record for having incredible showmen behind the microphone, Tony Banks thought that one of them was a better singer live.
Then again, comparing Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins is like comparing two completely different genres of music. Yes, they both had progressive tendencies, but when it came to their approaches to the live show, Gabriel put on the kind of spectacle that no one else could have imagined in the early days of the genre.
Sure, people like Rick Wakeman looked cool in their capes, and King Crimson could certainly light up a stage, but were any of them going to dress up like a flower and don lavish costumes when performing songs like ‘Supper’s Ready’? Compared to everyone else, Gabriel was the showman who ruled them all, so it’s completely natural to think that Collins would have been an obvious downgrade, right?
After all, the one thing every drummer says before they get kicked out is that they have songs that the group should play, so why should this be any different? Well, when Collins went to open his mouth, the band realised they had one of the best vocalists already in the band without anyone noticing.
While this was pre-‘In The Air Tonight’ Collins, albums like A Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering made audiences see him as at least on equal footing with Gabriel. When it came time for the band to tour, Banks had to admit that things sounded a lot more full without having to deal with any of Gabriel’s antics.
Even though Banks and Gabriel had been lifelong friends, it was no contest that Collins was the better singer when it came time to play live, saying, “Because he came from inside the band, the fans didn’t see it as a [betrayal], and he was very good at. And probably, dare I say it, in some ways, a better singer onstage live than Peter. Don’t tell Peter I said that.”
But does Banks really need to explain why Collins was much better live? Even if he was behind the drumkit for a handful of the songs, it’s much easier to sing into a microphone when he didn’t have to worry about wardrobe changes in between every song and having to wear all kinds of prosthetics on his head to properly put together every stage piece.
When looking at where Gabriel went with his solo career, though, it was clear that he was taking some lessons from his old friends, whether that was toning down the costumes or playing more radio-friendly material like So while his old friends were working on Invisible Touch. Phil Collins is still one of the most polarising figures in prog music for either saving or killing Genesis, but once he hit the stage in his prime, there was no doubt that fans would still get a great show even without the sideshow angle.
