Leaves a musical group on stage in the beginning (8)
I believe the answer is:
abandons
'leaves' is the definition.
(abandoning is a kind of leaving)
'a musical group on stage in the beginning' is the wordplay.
'musical group' becomes 'band' (band is a kind of musical group).
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'stage in the beginning' becomes 'ons' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'a'+'band'+'ons'='ABANDONS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for abandons that I've seen before include "Deserts, forsakes" , "Deserts, never intending to return" , "Deserts, gives up completely" , "Deserts, say a sinking ship" , "Forsake, leave behind" .)