Peter Gabriel

anyone see him on this tour? heard a lot of good things

I saw him live a couple weeks ago. I think it was the oldest crowd I've ever seen at a concert!

The performance was really solid. He faltered on a few high notes during the first song and I got a little worried, but after that his voice was in top form for the entire rest of the show. Very impressive for a guy his age, he's still got the range! His band was great too, a whole lot of talent there. They played "Don't Give Up" and their singer actually did Kate Bush's part justice.

I'm a pretty casual fan, so I was taking Gabriel's measure as a person for the first time. He seems like a genuinely great guy who is way too ready to jump on every passing silicon valley hype train. His opening monologue had HUGE TED Talk energy. Later on, he introduced Panopticom and did this whole tech evangelist monologue about how humanity is about to give birth to a new child called AI, and it’s going to be dangerous but it’s also going to revolutionize medicine and it’s going to give every child their own affordable, personalized, perfect education, and everybody’s gonna be surveilled all the time but it’ll actually be good cuz it’ll prevent bad behavior. I was squirming in my seat!

But like I said, he also seems like a really good person. He really went out of his way to feature his band members and talked them up constantly, making sure everybody knew their names. The show’s visuals were extensive and featured the band members on the same level as Gabriel pretty consistently. If you didn’t know better you might assume it was more of a collective than a solo artist show. I respect that! They certainly deserved it, they were fantastic.

He played waaaay too much of his new stuff, but that's to be expected I suppose.

thanks for the review - going on tuesday, pretty excited!

going in a few weeks. Looking forward to it because I'm a fan of 40 years, though I feel like this album is kind of limp and most of the set is devoted to it (plus sledgehammer and big time, two songs I really wish he'd stop doing). I've watched a lot of youtube videos so already know what to expect staging wise.

tour seems to have sold very erratically across the US; apparently lots of seats in some venues didn't sell, and prices got cut day of show. didn't happen in the bay area though.

tour was great. video and effects set-up was genuinely impressive, new songs were presented with a lot of great (if a bit addled, as onesecondbefore points out) context, and tony levin, manu katche, and david rhodes can still rip, and the longtime camaraderie between gabriel and these guys was charmingly evident. his voice still sounds pretty spectacular, and he was moving pretty well during the livelier numbers.

the cellist/backing vocalist was featured just enough that when "don't give up" started you'd be confident she'd kill it, and kill it she did

I think it was the oldest crowd I've ever seen at a concert!

yeah i was the youngest one there by some years. everyone sat patiently through the (pretty good) new material, and when one of the songs everyone knew came on, they came to life.

Yes, some of the special effects he had going were genuinely pretty cool. I particularly liked the glass pane effect in the second act... You'll know what I mean when you see it. I also thought some of the video behind certain songs was pretty cool. Sledgehammer's video seemed corny at first but really grew on me as this explosive celebration of fecundity.

Probably buying cheap tickets for tomorrow night, I assume nosebleeds on the side will still provide an OK view?

I think that really depends on the venue, but I was in a nosebleed on the side toward the back and I had an OK view.

I went to the Madison Square garden show last week (I so never want to go there again, but I ended up there for PG this year, Roxy last) and to my ears he is singing his old shit in the original keys and sounds great…

I can't always remember the deep cuts from Us or Up, and I think he did some of that stuff, but I think it is pretty ballsy to play that much shit that the casual fan isn't going to be familiar with… after the closing "Biko," a lady who was sitting behind me asked me and my friend why everyone wasn't en masse singing along "ay aye ohhhhh"; "I saw him in Denmark" (or some other place in Europe) "and everyone in the place was singing aong…why doesn't a NYC crowd do that?" Maybe NYC crowds are really standoffish, as many have suggested. It is true that the crowd was very very old, well off and uptight, and it makes me appreciate the much younger, drunker and stoned-er crowd I encountered for QOTSA and probly will for Lightning Bolt in a few weeks…

I mentioned in the (er) Replacements thread that I've read some fans disappointed at hearing the hits shuffled in, saying it kind of breaks the mood and feels like a pointless attempt to liven things up when PG heads (no doubt already seated and comfy) don't need it. Personally, I'd rather have something like "Mercy Street" over "Sledgehammer" or "Big Time," say, given the set seems to be largely "New Songs, plus Selections from So."

I've read some fans disappointed at hearing the hits shuffled in, saying it kind of breaks the mood and feels like a pointless attempt to liven things up

i'd bet this is like 15 people out of 15,000 in a crowd

I agree. if you want to see some real bellyaching and moaning about setlists, go look at hoffman forums reviews of this tour. But I'll take what I can get. Ive been lucky enough to see him 5 times (at Amnesty in the late 80's, twice on the Us tour, once right after that for a WOMAD thing, and a few years back on the So revisited tour).

I've seen him ... three times before? Four? Twice on Us, once on Up, once with Sting. To be fair, I've not read any negative reviews of this tour, which surprises me, because none of the new songs have really clicked with me, at least in their pseudo-released forms. I'm intrigued by how many people love the staging, not that I'd necessarily expect anything else, but because the Us and Up tours were pretty cool, yet the last couple of outings seemed more conservative and paired down, like he'd had a talk with his accountant.

i've never seen him so i'm really excited
i try to avoid pre-release tracks for albums these days

I'm a little surprised he's not including a link to the album with each ticket or something like that.

i have no idea what he is thinking regarding the release of the album. though, all the tracks bar one are now available.

He's probably thinking, hmm, I should spend a few more years on this.

Or maybe he's thinking, just wait until they hear the other 30 songs!

Or maybe he's thinking, is it too late to call Buckethead?

It's never too late to call Buckethead.

Show tonight was lovely, though I guess I wish it was a little more lively, plus it would have been better suited to a theater. Still, Gabriel's voice sounds great, and the band was great, and I give a lot of credit for the pretty audacious setlist.

went last night - amazing show. def echo josh's sentiments. i hadn't listened to anything prior but the new songs worked live pretty well i thought.

i actually kind of get those comments about the hits breaking up the vibe a bit now?

the staging/video stuff was amazing, so creative and just a model for how to do a cool arena show.

only quibble is he didn't play many hits and i would have loved something like "shock the monkey" or "games without frontiers" instead of "big time" (esp cuz he played sledgehammer already)

"digging in the dirt" was a highlight...his cellist really nailed "don't give up" - amazing voice and also she didn't try to imitatie kate bush, made it her own

so glad i went

he did do those weird rambling AI speeches sounded like gibberish basically

i actually kind of get those comments about the hits breaking up the vibe a bit now?

The worst was the transition from the beautiful song about his mother to "Big Time."

yeah "Big Time" is not a favorite of mine and why play it when you've played a far superior song in the same style w/"Sledgehammer"?

he always plays that, he must like it, but weirdly it's a song that I don't recall anyone loving, ever (like Steam)

the band clearly loves playing "big time," so i was cool with it. i did lol at the only transition from that somber song being "what time is it??" *crash, bang*

also the skeleton flipping off the crowd on the video screen

I like "Quiet Steam" from the Flotsam & Jetsam collection — he played a bit of it on the Secret World tour before launching into Loud Steam. I'm hoping he does more music in that spare, subdued mode in future: minimal instrumentation, turbulence just below the surface, etc.

I've always been a big fan of the Massive Attack remix of "Games Without Frontiers."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mauZeyroS0Y

yeah that was a great remix/remake.

Quiet Steam was def preferable to Steam as released, but it also set a template for most of what he's done since; like, a lot of Up sounded like that. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it gets kind of dull.

I'm just bummed that for a guy so interested in rhythm, and with so many great drummers to choose from, he's often defaulted for much of the past 25 years to these sort of boring, canned loops.

I heard "Quiet Steam" on the "Digging..." cassingle. Imagine my surprise when I heard the album version.

me as well. 'surprise' is one way of putting it.

He really took a sledgehammer to it

I have a feeling every Peter Gabriel song starts pretty chill and/or slow, and either he realizes it and decides to pep something up or someone else does. A useful reminder: the evolution of "Sledgehammer"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJU_MLQc2fc

I will say that I actually prefer Steam to Sledgehammer these days

I've been playing this version at DJ gigs lately and people go crazy once it kicks in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg3VdmCD-H4

Kurt s I want you to mash that up with Eminence Front SO BADLY

The album cover has been revealed:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Peter_Gabriel_album_cover.jpg

I actually really like this, even if the sensibility feels dark for most of the material. It has obvious echoes of the Melt cover in the placement of hands and seemingly droopy eye, but suggests mediated coherence rather than defacement, in keeping with the album's technological themes: he's holding himself together.

much nicer cover than what I was expecting, which was that garish yellow/pink i/o treatment he gave most of the tour merch. But other photos from this session were used for the cover of the tour programme (and some stage projections) and they looked really cool.

I'm much happier with this album these days than I was when the songs first started dropping; made my own playlist matching the proposed running order and it flows great. I still have issues with how some of the songs end (olive tree and road to joy) but who knows if either of the mixes out will be the ones that make the album.

Seeing him tonight in the desert with the new moon :)

I’m just jumping in to say I absolutely love “Big Time”, it would be one my “hope this is played” list and it’s one of my favorite songs of his

I sang "Big Time" at karaoke yesterday. The version they used helpfully included a prerecorded high harmony vocal.

Considering the circumstances -- Prince Charles, wardrobe choices, haircuts, Midge Ure -- this version of "Sledgehammer" slams. Phil Collins behind the kit sounds great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftB23tIV_i8

Is that Mick Karn in the b/g?

Album release finally announced, December 1. Putting out both mixes and you can choose which one you want (plus the atmos mixes on blu ray, which I don't deal with). Giant deluxe box with a book of course as well which I'll also skip because I've stopped spending money on things like that.

https://petergabriel.com/news/i-o-release-date-announcement/

I've made playlists of both the bright and dark side mixes, and on the whole enjoy the Blake/darkside mixes slightly more but honestly the differences are very very slight; I imagine he got them into an almost done state and then asked each person to just finish and polish them, but there are no differences in arrangements, big discrepencies on reverbs, or different musical or vocal takes that I've noticed.

Rumor is that he will tour again next year (this coming from someone who talked to Tony Levin's tour manager who told them he was on tour half of next year with Gabriel again)

The last "Y' he sings at the end of DIY on 'Plays Live' is the most insane thing ever, it's kinda thrilling.

I'm looking forward to his next record, hope he gets working on it soon.