(Credits: Warner Music)
Sun 23 November 2025 20:00, UK
The breakup of Genesis felt like a slow and painful process for anyone that saw them in their prime in the early 1970s.
While it was clear that they were going to be a different group altogether once Phil Collins stepped behind the microphone, seeing everyone from Peter Gabriel to Steve Hackett to Collins himself slowly leave the group was bound to be disheartening for any longtime fan. But even though the band have managed to patch things up and be on good terms after the fact, Collins knew there were a few people that had their creative lines drawn ever since they left.
Granted, it’s hard to think of anyone in the band having any bad blood between each other for too long. They had their disagreements, sure, but what band doesn’t? Even though Gabriel had more than a few headaches dealing with the band and trying to build a home with his wife and newborn daughter during The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, it’s not like he was going to suddenly stop once he got his solo career underway.
The same could be said about the way that Collins dealt with his own solo career. In fact, a lot of bands could benefit from taking the same route that Genesis did when it came to solo works, with everyone coming back to the band now and again and striking the perfect balance between each part of their career. And by 1987, it seemed like the rest of the world agreed thanks to everyone being on the charts.
Collins’s presence may have been annoying seeing him get to the top of the charts both as a solo star and with Genesis albums like Invisible Touch, but since Mike Rutherford was doing well in Mike and the Mechanics and Gabriel blossomed into a legend in his own right on records like So, what was there to complain about?
Although Genesis as an entity did end up hitting shaky ground when making Calling All Stations, hearing them getting back together for a reunion felt like a golden opportunity for people who hadn’t seen them in their prime. But even though Collins was the perfect frontman to perform with the group at the time, he was the first to say that there was hardly a chance Gabriel would join the band onstage again.
The mainstream fans may have loved hearing tunes like ‘That’s All’ and ‘No Reply At All’, but Collins felt that Gabriel was far too consumed in his own artistry to even think about returning, saying, “A Genesis reunion with Peter Gabriel? People should forget about that. Before the last reunion, we had this painful meeting in Glasgow, which seemed to go on forever. Mike, Steve, Tony and I were keen. But we couldn’t get any commitment from Peter. Also, straight away, I could see that if Peter was involved, with the technology available, it would have been a nightmare.”
Then again, getting Gabriel is about more than having a simple frontman out onstage. Gabriel has made it a habit of turning everything into a multi-media experience, so for anyone that was looking to sing along to some of their favourite tunes was going to be in for a surprise if Gabriel brought a few gimmicks into the mix or thrown on some new abstract costumes like he did in the old days.
Although songs like ‘Supper’s Ready’ would have never been the same without Gabriel’s voice, it’s better to leave those moments in the past after a while. People might want to see that, but chances are they would be disappointed if they saw a version of Genesis that seemed to be going through the motions whenever they started playing.
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