It’s taken me almost two weeks to get round to writing this. Stuff happening. We went to see an artist that may not be to everyone’s liking. So to save your ploughing through I’ll tell you that we went to see…
Peter Gabriel.
Still with us? Then read on…
There has been plenty written about this tour already by people far more talented at this sort of thing than I am, so I’m not planning to do a massive in-depth review. And as I mentioned, it’s been some days now.
Despite the fact that his work with Genesis pre-dates me being properly interested in music, since hearing Solsbury Hill, which was a hit when I was 11 years old, I’ve always had a quiet admiration for PG. The fact that his first 4 solo albums were all called Peter Gabriel indicated to me that this was a guy who didn’t necessarily want to conform. I also found his song, Biko, particularly moving as a 14 year old, hearing it for the first time as it was released, just at the stage when I was becoming aware of world politics.
This current tour, the i/o Tour, is his first for 9 years. We’d never seen him live before and both Mrs TGG and I felt that was something we should rectify. His new album, i/o, is to be released later in 2023 and he is releasing a song at each full moon throughout the year. At the time of the concert at the Manchester Arena, 6 tracks had been released. Given that he plays (I think) 11 new songs as part of the 22 song set, some pre-show listening meant that we were at least familiar with some of them.
The show featured a number of animations and short films to accompany the music with PG keen to give thanks to their creators and giving a shout out to any that were in the audience that evening. He does come across as very humble and is continually thanking the band. Thanks are also directed to a seeming cast of thousands including the catering and driving staff for the tour.
We left feeling we’d really enjoyed the show. At 73 and with a lengthy back catalogue, playing so much new material can only be applauded in my book. He did please the retro crowd to some extent, with 5 songs from the mega-selling So album, including a superb vocalist to do the Kate Bush bits of Don’t Give Up. But there was no room for Games Without Frontiers or Shock The Monkey. He rounded off the encore with Biko, with a picture of the South African activist on screen behind him, the song dedicated to those fighting oppression all over the world, including Ukraine, Myanmar and Palestine.
My favourite new tracks have all been released already. If you’ve not heard any of them yet, now’s your chance.
Our next live music is a month away at the two-day retro-fest that is Rewind North. Not an event where we would expect many surprises, but as I’ve written previously, it’s local and so we invariably see a lot of folks that we know there. This year, two bands we’ve seen a lot are playing – Squeeze and China Crisis. I think they’re on the same day so I have a t-shirt dilemma!
I’ll try and get one or two other pieces written before then. I’ll try….
TGG
Wasting time in the study 
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