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Tony Banks

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10 Jan, 1973

Bataclan concert

InterviewMusic Performance0 Comments

The band are filmed before and during their performance at the Bataclan theater in Paris. The film shows excerpts of The Return of The Giant Hogweed, The KnifeSupper’s Ready. On The Musical Box Gabriel wears a fox head and red dress (in later tours he will use an old-man mask).

Int: When did you start to develop the theatrical side of your music?

PG: I think it came naturally… I had started to do a bit of mime and it increased with the music…and this last year it became more exaggerated than it was before…

Int: Who do you think you imitate the best ?

PG: Alice Cooper, I spent six months in the US to imitate him… and I watched 17 films of him on stage, just to copy his movements almost exactly… and David Bowie, I’ve been living with him for the last three years, which allowed me to understand a lot of his technique…

Int: But you’re the only one (in the band) to be theatrical…

PG: Of course, they’re all busy with their instruments…

TB: He’s singing, but there are a lot of moments where he doesn’t and so he must do something to get paid as much as the others…

Int: And you’ve never been tempted to act like him ? … it seems to me that Peter is the pop star, as if the others only play as a support band…

PG: No, Tony is having tap dancing lessons and next time we play in France he will do five minutes of tap dancing… and Steve does some numbers by Maurice Chevalier…

MR: The point to remember is that the theatrical side always enhances the music rather than the music…