Peter Gabriel, Utilita Arena, Birmingham 16th June

Words : Alan Neilson

Images : York Tillyer

Peter Gabriel is a legend, unquestionably. 

His voice is so distinctive and immediately recognisable that you know it’s his music as soon as he opens his mouth. 

He has produced genre crossing albums since the late 1970s and still continues to mesmerise with inventive and progressive ways of making and delivering music.  And of course he used to be in Genesis and chose to leave that band at their height, on his own terms. 

He is even self-deprecating enough to know how sometimes he is perceived by others as the most boring man in rock and appears in the Brian Pern’s rockumentary series.  As a man who used to dress up on stage as a flower and wear a fox head and red dress, you have to balance that outrageousness with the quiet meticulous musician who records wind in metal pipes and uses those samples to piece together complex sound sculptures that at the end of the process are incredibly listenable… even if on face value you’d expect that to be the equivalent of watching paint dry. 

Peter Gabriel is a complex man.

This “i/o” tour is supporting the release of his first new music in a long time, although the album is made up of songs and music he has been working on for twenty years in one form or another. 

Gabriel is not releasing the album conventionally, as you’d expect from a man who always finds new ways to promote his music, and has released six songs from the album individually since January (on each full moon). 

The actual album is due for release at the end of the year, however, won’t fans already have the whole thing by then anyway?  The debate on whether this is a good marketing idea can only (at the moment anyway) be judged on chart performance, and with an initial decent number 19 placing for the first release it was followed by four unplaced releases and a number 95… so, let’s put that down to only a conceptual artistic success.

The set tonight is made up of twenty-two songs and half of them are from this new album - Peter is serious; this is not a greatest hits tour for your average fan, or a rockstar going through the motions - this is an artistic statement by a musician who is not resting on his laurels, or satisfied to mindlessly rummage through his successful back catalogue for a casual listener. 

He starts the show almost in disguise, walking on to the stage with no band and talking directly to the audience, joking that he is actually an avatar, yet unlike Abba who appear as they were in 1976, he has chosen his avatar to be the old, fat, bald man he is now.  Of course, he is joking and the concert begins with the most human of introductions: a joke.  It’s an icebreaker and the stage is set for the most intimate of evenings as Peter does the most un rock n roll thing of all and breaks the fourth wall. 

He doesn’t speak in cliches but explains and introduces the new songs, the artwork displayed on the screens, his band members and the concepts that drove him to write these new songs.  It sounds like a lecture or a presentation, and when I look at the audience they are, for much of the set, quietly listening and learning - not rock n roll at all.  But it is beautiful.

As an elder statesman of rock and also not a born dancer, the incredibly complex and stunning stage design makes up for Gabriel’s lack of movement, which is essentially him pacing back and forth across the stage. 

He has presence obviously because he is Peter Gabriel, but if you didn’t know him you’d think the lead singer really needs to be more commanding on stage… maybe wear a big flower hat or something! 

As such the audience is mostly uninspired to move and sits motionless for almost the whole set.  Or maybe this is just the effect of the general slow to mid-tempo of many of the songs, or it could be the ages of most of the people in attendance. 

Gabriel does lift the crowd to its feet for ‘Sledgehammer’, but for some reason chooses to end the first set this way and so everyone immediately sits back down for the interval. 

The second set then starts twenty minutes later with another slow tempo track and the arena is static again, until the finale and the encores.  It is a noticeably staid atmosphere.  I don’t doubt everyone here is listening intently and loving every moment, but you only notice their enthusiasm occasionally. 

The band tonight are a dream come true for those of us who take as much interest in the session musicians as the main artist, and alongside the world’s best drummer Manu Katché, is the world’s best bass player Tony Levin, who with guitarist David Rhodes has been with Peter for what seems like forever. 

The other obvious stand out musician is cellist and backing vocalist Ayanna Witter-Johnson, who as well as being able to play cello standing up, sings at the same time.  And not only that, she sings duel lead vocal with Peter, particularly on the track ‘Don’t Give Up’; filling the boots once worn by Kate Bush on the recording and previously live by the incredible Paula Cole, is a hard thing to do, but she bettered them with her soulful rendition of that beautiful song. 

It must also be said that Peter’s voice is still a thing of absolute beauty.  It often sounds like it is at the very edges of its range, and could break at any moment, and that fragility is human and real.  I love that about him.  

As with any tour supporting and playing mostly from a new album, the new material, as interesting as it is, takes time to get under your skin and be part of your life.  Therefore the songs we all know and love are where there is a real buzz from the crowd. 

The highlight for me is ‘Solsbury Hill’ (the line “Son, he said, grab your things I’ve come to take you home” brings a tear to my eye every time I hear the song, because since I first heard it in 1977 when I was about 9, I always thought it was about a father saving his son from a dangerous situation).  The singalong part of the ‘Boom boom boom’ is always a crowd pleaser and tonight is no different. 

This is the last song of set two but the roars and screams pull the band back on stage for two encores:  the sublime ‘In Your Eyes’ and devastatingly brilliant ‘Biko’, with Stephen’s face on the large screen above the stage.  The audience again sing along with the outro as each band member leaves the stage, leaving only Manu and his thundering tom toms.  The song is still as poignant now as it was when it was written.

The main feeling I take from the show is how happy and content Peter Gabriel appears to be; he is clearly very comfortable in his skin and loving bringing his new songs to the world.  There are moments in the two sets where I thought the audience had slipped into a collective coma, but in the barn that is the NIA, it’s sometimes difficult to get a real personal connection, apart from the overall spectacle of the occasion.  There are real moments of beauty though, musically and visually, no question about that at all.

Set 1:
Washing of the Water
Growing Up
Panopticom
Four Kinds of Horses
i/o
Digging in the Dirt
Playing for Time
Olive Tree
This Is Home
Sledgehammer

Set 2:
Darkness
Love Can Heal
Road to Joy
Don't Give Up
The Court
Red Rain
And Still
Big Time
Live and Let Live
Solsbury Hill

Encore:
In Your Eyes

Encore 2:
Biko