Gabriel

I honestly can't remember how I came to like Peter Gabriel, and I've been thinking about it for the last few days. I knew his name certainly, when I first saw the 'Sledgehammer' video on MTV, but I suspect I just pinned him down as a 70s prog rock hasbeen trying to get back into the charts, despite the fact it was a great song and an astounding video (and it remains so to this day).

At some point, I was interested enough by him to buy his third album, the prosaically named 3. It was on the strength of this album that I eventually bought 'So' and for a while I couldn't stop listening to it. I was, by that stage, in a recording band myself and 'So' seemed a more beautifully recorded album than anyone might ever reasonably aspire to. Plus the songs were amazing.

A few years later, Gabriel released a live video taken from the 'So' tour, filmed in Athens, which included this absolutely beauty, possibly my favourite piece of live music ever.  

So, when I saw that Gabriel was planning to play live this year, performing the whole of the 'So' album and with the original band, I was sorely tempted despite the hefty ticket price. But the venue was the building formerly known as the Millenium Dome and I am an avowed disliker of The Big Venue. Thus, I decided not to go, whilst retaining  a niggling worry that I'd made a mistake.

And then @bertrandrustles, in a show of extraordinary kindness, gave me a ticket.

And so it was that this afternoon I met up with this exceedingly cool chap for a pizza and beer before we stepped into the enormous cavern of the O2 to watch Gabriel play. I should say up front that the sound was amazing and the fact that we were some distance from the stage was much less of a consideration that I could possibly have imagined.

The show started with a solo performance - by a chap whose name I didn't catch - of 'Zaar', which was amazing, and then Gabriel came on stage with his long-serving bass player, Tony Levin, to perform a work in progress, whose lyrics were not yet complete, which was, frankly, a bit less impressive.

But it all got better from there. The acoustic "third" of the set consisted of 'Come Talk To Me' and 'Shock The Monkey', which worked much better acoustically than I'd imagined they might, and the first half of 'Family Snapshot', which became progressively more electronic. From there we were treated to 'Digging In The Dirt' and the marvellous 'Secret World', both of which are better live than on record, and then 'The Family And The Fishing Net' (I'd have preferred 'Lay Your Hands On Me'), 'No Self Control' and the crowd pleasing 'Solsbury Hill', which just goes to show that we forty- and fifty-somethings can groove to a track written in 7/8. Beat that, you young people!

Then we (genuinely) enjoyed a new track, 'Why Don't You Show Yourself?' before the 'So' performance began. And, my God, I'm so very grateful to @bertrandrustles for taking me along; it was amazing. Every song was as good, if not better, than it was on the album. Over the years, some of the tracks have improved through the live performances, so, for example, we enjoyed the beautiful a cappella introduction to 'Mercy Street', while the one weak track, 'That Voice Again', was refashioned and improved.

It was wonderful to watch this bunch of aging chaps enjoying both the music and the physical performance, and the theatrical aspects were superb and appropriate (even if Gabriel carrying the suitcase across the back of the set during 'Don't Give Up' put me in mind of Morecambe and Wise!)

There was a two song encore, consisting of a storming 'The Tower That Ate People' and then, bringing the evening to a perfect close. 'Biko'. This powerful song commemorating the life and unforgivable death of Stephen Biko was the closer for Gabriel concerts for many years. Its last line is "And the eyes of the world are watching now, watching now' and, as an introduction to the song, Gabriel talked about the phenomenon of the mobile 'phone camera, unimagined when the song was written, that enables us all now to see exactly what is going on, anywhere in the world.

(And, to those people who left during the performance of 'Biko', I'd just say, isn't showing a little respect more important than beating the traffic?)

All in, it was a brilliant evening and my reservations about 'the big gig' were at least partially unfounded; the sound was amazing, the performance unmissable. I'm so terribly grateful that I got the chance to see the show and so I must say thank you very much, @bertrandrustles!