After seeing the Gabriel/Genesis reunion rumors and parodies thereof, we, the Solsbury Hill Homepage Committee, decided we wanted in on it. Here goes:
[Ahem. Cough, cough. Ahem.]
Genesis wanted a Gabriel/Genesis reunion to herald the coming of Box Trot: The Gabriel Years. The problem: Gabe is already up to his armpits in other pending projects, i.e., a new album, a new soundtrack, a movie, a new CD ROM, coming up with another two-letter title for the new album, etc. How could PG possibly keep up with Real World and a do Genesis reunion tour?
Then Real World Multimedia came up with a solution: The Virtual Gabriel. This new technology will allow for a life-like 3-D projection of Gabriel to appear on the stage, complete with the highest quality recordings possible of Gabriel of that era.
The result: fans get to enjoy Gabriel-era Genesis, and Gabriel gets to stay at home.
We sent reporters out to get the scoop on this breathtaking new technology. We found (cornered and ambushed) Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford at a recording studio and asked them to tell us about Virtual Gabriel.
"You must promise that you don't put this on the Internet or anything of that nature, but, yes, we are going to use Virtual Gabriel in the reunion tour," Tony Banks said.
"We also wanted to make a Virtual Hackett, but after making the Virtual Gabriel, we didn't have the finances. Financial problems were also the reason why we didn't go with the original plan, which was to fit 60,000 concert-goers with virtual reality headgear and simply have it recreate all the band members for a show," Rutherford commented.
"We already tested the prototype in front of a small audience in Sweden," Banks said. "It went pretty smoothly...we had no problems playing around Virtual Gabriel. There was a glitch during the show during 'A Firth of Fifth' and Virtual Gabriel went off-line somehow and disappeared for a few seconds before reappearing...the audience just thought it was a real neat special effect."
But isn't it odd to be playing an entire tour with a band member that really isn't there, we asked.
"Ask Phil Collins. He's in the next room," Rutherford said with a sly smile. So we did.
Phil said, "Well...mmmmmmmmmmmmm" We quickly realized that something was up. It really wasn't Phil Collins...it was...
"Meet the AudioAnimatronic Collins, made by Disney..." Banks said.