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| The Musical Box at The Danforth Music Hall – 2012 |
Dec 3 2012 – On Friday November 30th we saw an excellent concert at our favorite venue in Toronto for its size – the Danforth Music Hall. All our reviews so far have focused on the show but today we wanted to be a little unorthodox and focus on the venue as much as the show.
The Danforth is located at 147 Danforth Avenue (just west of Broadview). Being on the perimeter of Greek Town (an area I know very well as I grew up and lived in that area for 30 years) makes the location absolultely pefect for a concert. Not only is the venue located within a 3 minute walk from a subway station, it is situated 5 minutes on either side of many of excellent restuarants and pubs (in fact there are 3 pubs within a door or two away from the venue). The venue can accomodate a general admission layout without any seats as well as a seated configuration. Tonight the seats were out (as they should be for a show as this).
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| The Musical Box at The Danforth Music Hall – 2012 |
If you have not been to the Danforth Music Hall in the last few years you would be suprised as you walked in. Everything has been redone – and done right. The 100 year old building has been preserved but has been fixed up remarkable as can be evidenced by the entrance way and the adjoining bar. Surely millions have gone into make The Danforth Music Hall the best 1000 seat venue in Toronto. We had a chance to interview it;’s General Manager Michael Sherman earlier in the year and you can check out that review here.
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| The Musical Box at The Danforth Music Hall – 2012 |
Tonight we were there (as previously mentioned) to see The Musical Box who are a Montreal based tribute band that have been around for almost 20 years. Their heritage is much more than just a typical tribute band though. Wikipedia tells us that:
In 2000 The Musical Box purchased the rights from Peter Gabriel and Genesis to re-create The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Genesis helped The Musical Box greatly with this show staging by giving them copies of the 1,200 original slides. They also had access to the original slide operators who helped them put them back (more or less) into the correct order. In addition the band was granted full access to the original album master tapes so they could correctly reproduce the sound live on stage, even though Genesis themselves did not do this. The band consists of:
- Denis Gagné (“Peter Gabriel“, “Phil Collins” as vocalist) – Lead Vocals, Percussion, Flute (as Gabriel)
- François Gagnon (“Steve Hackett“) – 6-string electric and acoustic guitars, 12-string guitar
- Sébastien Lamothe (“Mike Rutherford“) – bass, bass pedals, 12-string guitar, vocals
- Gregg Bendian (“Bill Bruford“) – drums, percussion
- Michel Cloutier (“Tony Banks“) – keyboards, 12-string guitar, vocals
- Marc Laflamme (“Phil Collins” as drummer) – Drums, Percussion
The band performed the classic Genesis album “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” in its entirety and blew the audience away both it their musical talent but also for the visual feast they delivered. The show started at 8:30 and lasted close to 2 hours. Although the venue was not sold out (it was at what appeared to be 90% capacity) the band took the lucky ones to a journey to the early 70’s complete with costume changes and slide shows. I kept wondering was Gabriel truly demented at the time he wrote this piece or was he a true genius. Either way the night proved to be great fun and we ran into some of Toronto’s musical elite as members of Druckfarben, Michael White and The White, and TimeGiant were all there.
Verdict: As we stated above we wanted to focus on the venue as much as the show and we can once again say that The Danforth Music Hall is the BEST 1000’ish seat venue in Toronto. The Musical Box were a perfect dish to serve on the Danforth’s plate.
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| The Musical Box at The Danforth Music Hall – 2012 |
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| The Musical Box at The Danforth Music Hall – 2012 |
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| The Musical Box at The Danforth Music Hall – 2012 |
Having seen the original at Maple Leaf Gardens wish I had been there to see this.
(Oh well didn't win your contest.) At the Gardens it was done as Concert Bowl which meant sideways in the arena. Screens across the back of a stage that was wider than most shows. Was an awesome concert from what I remember. This was Genesis not what came after Gabriel left.