Gabriel’s band Genesis drew some attention in Britain and eventually also in Italy, Belgium, Germany and other European countries, largely due to Gabriel's flamboyant stage presence, which involved numerous bizarre costume changes and comical, dreamlike stories told as the introduction to each song (originally Gabriel developed these stories solely to cover the time between songs that the rest of the band would take tuning their instruments and fixing technical glitches).

Among Gabriel's many famous costumes were "Batwings" for the band's usual opening number, "Watcher of the Skies".