Peter Gabriel’s First Costume Ever On Stage

Genesis playing The Musical Box at the National Stadium, Dublin, Ireland, 28 September 1972

Peter comes on after the second instrumental solo with a Fox Head and a Red Dress, surprising the band along with the fans.

Peter Gabriel: “My wife Jill had this red dress in her cupboard, which, believe it or not, I could get into. I decided to use it at a show in Dublin, at the National Stadium—an old boxing arena. I might have told the band my plan, but if so it would have been just before hand. I certainly wasn’t always upfront about everything because you’d end up having these endless debates and I’d think, ‘Oh, fuck it, I can’t be bothered.’ … There was a silence when I walked out on the stage in this outfit. I think that very few people had seen a man in a dress at that point and certainly not one wearing a fox’s head as well.”

Tony Banks: “I don’t know why Pete chose this particular gig, perhaps because it was in Ireland, and he thought he could probably get away with it a bit more. It was a shock, this apparition coming towards me in a fox’s head and a dress. I thought ‘Christ!’, but carried on playing, a true professional … and the audience loved it.”

— From Genesis: Chapter & Verse.

Armando Gallo original photo taken at Lewisham’s Odeon , UK, 29 October 1972.

“Peter surprised the London crowd by coming out in the middle of “Musical Box” wearing a red dress and a fox head. The album “Foxtrot” had just come out.”