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NEW YORK - The rock band Genesis will tour for the first time in 15 years this summer, but without former front man Peter Gabriel, the group said today.
The European and North American tour will feature vocalist and drummer Phil Collins, keyboard player Tony Banks and guitarist Mike Rutherford, reviving the lineup that reached its peak success in the 1980s.
Gabriel, a vocalist and flutist who helped found the band in 1966, will not participate, though Collins left open the possibility that Gabriel might participate in future projects.
"It's not like it's a party that we're holding that Peter didn't come to," Collins told a news conference, declining to explain further.
Genesis will tour Europe this summer, including a free concert at the Circus Maximus in Rome, and the band might participate on July 7 in former US Vice President Al Gore's "Live Earth" event, which is occurring in cities around the world.
The North American leg of the Turn it on Again tour will start September 7 in Toronto and finish at Hollywood Bowl on October 12.
The tour coincides with the Rhino Records release of three boxed sets of material from the band's 13 studio albums. Rhino is part of Warner Music Group.
Genesis formed in the late 1960s when Banks, Gabriel and Rutherford were teenagers. Collins joined in 1970 and, after Gabriel left in 1975, took over as front man and lead singer. The first post-Gabriel album, Trick of the Tail, sold more than any other previous album.
Collins remained with Genesis until 1991, when he began performing as a solo artist. In 1997, the remaining members of Genesis released Calling All Stations, a commercial disappointment.
Collins said the band members had stayed in touch, and a reunion tour was something they talked about "every time we met".
In previous tours Collins told audiences he would stop performing but said he decided to tour again with Genesis because "I didn't want a lid put on my coffin quite yet."
- REUTERS
