This week I treated myself to two nights out watching one of my all time favourites, Peter Gabriel.
I decided to get tickets for two shows because every time I've seen PG previously once never seemed enough. I was also mindful of the fact that PG is not getting any younger, and with a gap of around ten years between albums and tours I didn't really anticipate much chance of ever seeing him tour again.
On Thursday we drove up to Glasgow, I was expecting the venue to be the old SECC, but with a new name. How wrong I was, the Hydro is a brand new arena right next to the SECC that only opened a few weeks ago. Initially it's quite a nice new venue, it's bigger than the SECC which isn't what I wanted. I deliberately plumped for Glasgow over travelling down south and seeing PG perform at the O2 in London because I thought the SECC was a really good venue, on the small side for an arena. Anyhow, I had got good tickets, we weren't at all far from the stage, right in the middle of block 008 so quite close, and bang in the centre of the stage.
The support for the show was supplied by Gabriel's latest backing singers, Jennie Abrahamson and Linnea Olsson. Two proper Moomins from Sweden. The two singers performed together, each did two of their own songs. I preferred Linnea to Jennie, but
@Ck
had the opposite opinion. I've downloaded some Linnea Olsson stuff this morning from the iTunes, I liked it that much.
Already I had noticed that the sound in the arena seemed a bit, off. There was a lot of echo on the microphones, I assumed it was done deliberately whilst the support acts were on.
Gabriel had introduced the support act himself, shortly after they finished he saunters back on stage and flops down at a piano. He then explains that the evenings entertainment will be served in three 'courses'. He explains that the 'starter' will be a 'bare bones' acoustic set, this meant three or four songs performed acoustically with the rest of the band with all the houselights still on and no theatrics or light effects or stage show at all. That part began with just Gabriel, and long time collaborator Tony Levin on bass, performing a brand new song, which hasn't even been finished yet! Not entirely sure what the singer hoped to achieve with this. Although there were obviously a lot of life-long die-hard Gabriel fans attending, the draw had been the promise of hearing the So album played in its entirety. I'm just not convinced everybody was that arsed about experiencing what you'd expect from a BBC Four rockumentary on the recording process of his latest album.
Then the rest of the band, plus Jennie and Linnea were brought onto the stage. I've seen Gabriel twice in recent years, at the Hammersmith Apollo in March 2011 and about a year previously at the O2 Arena. Both those times he was playing with the New Blood Orchestra, I hadn't seen him play with a regular band since about 2003 and I was really looking forward to seeing him on stage with Tony Levin and David Rhodes (guitar) again. Rhodes has been in Gabriel's band since 1980, and Tony Levin even longer than that, there is a certain chemistry they have that I previously enjoyed at PG concerts and really missed when he played with the NBO. Also in the line-up was David Sancious (keyboards), a former member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, who was in Gabriel's touring band back in 1986-7 when they first took So on the road with the This Way Up Tour. Very excitingly original drummer Manu Katché was also included in the band, I'd never seen Gabriel play live with the legendary French drummer and was really looking forward to it.
Once the full line-up had assembled, still with all the house lights on, they fired into an acoustic version of Come Talk to Me. I was a bit worried. This was one of my favourites, I wanted to hear it in all its glory, not a stripped down version. I don't particularly like musicians farting about with their songs when they play them live. Sting is the fucking worst, when you pay to hear him play Roxanne you don't want a 16-minute long fucking jazz improv. Fortunately Gabriel isn't as big a twat as Sting, and if anyone is going to reinterpret his material it might as well be him, he does do a good job of it. So I was relieved when Come Talk to Me was still as bloody blisteringly brilliant as an acoustic version. They followed that up with Shock the Monkey, which sounded a little fuzzy unfortunately and didn't really hit the spot. The next song was Family Snapshot, another stonker that I knew would be amazing. It was part way through that song that we suddenly snapped into Part II of the evening, the full-on electric experience. As the final verse kicks in the houselights all suddenly went out and the stage was lit up with just white spotlights and the projection screens. That was to be the theme of Part II, no coloured lamps or screens were used until Part III.
During Part II, the 'savoury' course of our three course meal, the band knocked out some rather industrial sounding versions of Digging in the Dirt, Secret World, The Family and the Fishing Net, No Self Control, and Solsbury Hill. Secret World was probably the best part, and Solsbury Hill is always just an absolute joy to listen to. The sound was beginning to bother me at this point. I was quite keen to hear The Family and the Fishing as I'd never heard it live before, but it just sounded a mess. It was already going to be an unpopular choice, simply because it is quite morbid sounding, but when they performed it, particularly the climax, it did just sound like an awful racket.
Part II ended with another new track. Why Don't You Show Yourself is taken from the soundtrack to some Mexican film about God, or something close to that, as Gabriel did explain. It sounded fine, personally I think he should have kept the pace up as we then went straight in to Part III. The 'dessert' course was the performance of the entire So album from top to bottom, in the order it was intended. The bit about the order refers to the original album having In Your Eyes as the first track on side two of the record, all later issues on CD, etc..put that track on the very end of the album.
So Part III kicks off (as any PG fan will no doubt know) with Red Rain, which is always fantastic, then in to Sledgehammer, which I'm no longer a huge fan of and it sounded quite poor, but then so did a lot of the set list. Now I'd read reviews of the previous tour dates and was looking forward to Don't Give Up as it had been praised as the highlight to the entire show. Playing Kate Bush was Jennie Abrahamson, and she is a great singer, I think I would have to say she did a better job than Ane Brun, who filled Bush's boots on the two previous tours I'd seen Gabriel play. But all the way through the song I couldn't stop thinking 'what the fuck was Manu Katché playing at?' I started to believe he has some sort of attention deficit disorder. I'm trying to listen to the soulful tones of Gabriel and Abrahamson and there's this constant annoying percussion playing over the top of them! The man I was probably most impressed about seeing on the line-up was fucking ruining it. I wondered if the reason he hadn't played live with Gabriel for so many years was because he insisted on making a fucking row the entire show and bollocksing it up for everyone else, so Gabriel politely knobbed him off. As the night went on it became more and more obvious that the drums were mixed too loud, you couldn't really make out David Rhodes playing his guitar, and just what the fuck they did to David Sancious' keyboards is a mystery. During In Your Eyes Gabriel gleefully called out Sancious' name signalling him to knock out a boogie-woogie keyboard solo. The musician's smiling face was projected up onto the big screens, while he performed what sounded like the crappest out-of-tune solo you could imagine. He looked really fucking pleased with it!
Big Time seemed to be really good, and I was pleased that the band performed This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds), and it was really good. I was very curious to hear We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37), and it sounded like a complete mess. For an encore the band came back on stage to perform The Tower That Ate People, which was from Gabriel's less popular OVO album and could well have been Nine Inch Nails. There was a wink to Gabriel's old Genesis days when a tube of fabric was pulled up around him and he continued singing from inside the 'tower'. The show finished with Biko. Gabriel gave a little speech about the power given to activists to record any human rights abuse using modern technology and guarantee that when and where atrocities are taking place 'the eyes of the world are watching now'. I've always been too cool (miserable sod) to do any of that fist pumping, but I do like to see everyone else doing it. Bit sad that not many people joined in, I remember when Gabriel first toured the world playing So, and stadiums four or five times the size of the Hydro would be filled with almost everybody shouting along and raising their clenched fists.
I left feeling a little let down, but before I write the night off I have to say Peter Gabriel at his very worst is still ten times better than mostly everyone else at their very best. I could turn up to see the man hit a tin bucket with a stick and it would still be brilliant.
Anyhow, the following day I drove back down to Manchester to see him do it all again at their arena. This time the seats weren't quite so good, at first glance. I had seats right in the centre of the stage again, but this time further back. We were in block 109, so probably twice as far back as the previous night, but still a good central view.
The set list was exactly the same. The only difference was that there was a sign language choir on between the support and the main acts.
During the acoustic set it was difficult to tell whether the sound was better or worse. I did get the opinion though that despite being a lot further back, the view was actually better. As the show progressed this was confirmed. From further back you really got to appreciate the full stage and light show better, so that was already a plus. By the time we'd got to Don't Give Up it was blazingly obvious that the previous night's sound desk troubles were not being repeated. Everything sounded a million times better, Manu Katché was absolutely great once he was mixed properly. And when David Sancious got to his little keyboard solo he sounded superb. We got to hear exactly what he must have been hearing the previous night through his monitors which he was so pleased with.
Family and the Fishing Net sounded much clearer, and We Do What We're Told was also far better on the second night. Oddly Big Time was worse, that was really dull on the second night.
Obviously I'm extra glad I decided to get tickets for more than just the Glasgow show, although I made the decision to get tickets for more than one show based on Gabriel perhaps never touring again, I'm hoping more than ever that he does release some new material and there will be more opportunities to see who I think is the planet's greatest play live once more.
I'm going to grade both nights as one, and overall Gabriel still manages five potatoes out of five.