That's So Peter Gabriel!

Some musicians are wont to continuously reinvent themselves; think David Bowie, think Madonna. Others plough the same narrow furrow throughout their careers (yes, Status Quo, I am talking about you). Steering a course somewhere between the two is Peter Gabriel.

In 1975 Gabriel handed in his batwing costume, hung up his Slipperman suit and waved goodbye to prog rock giants Genesis to embark on a solo career. His first album (eponymously titled, as were his subsequent three releases) was an eclectic mix a world away from the material he had written and recorded with Genesis. It spawned a hit single, Solsbury Hill, introducing Gabriel to a new audience. To distinguish his untitled first three albums from one another they are normally referred to as Car, Scratch and Melt; his fourth album, untitled in the UK, was released as Security in the USA.

Then, in 1986, Gabriel surprised his fans with an album that actually had a title; So. It went triple platinum in the UK and reached Number One in the album charts. It generated three Top 20 UK hit singles; Don't Give Up, Big Time and Sledgehammer,  on which Gabriel made his intentions clear; "This is the new stuff, I go dancing in." Now Gabriel has returned to So and his "Back to Front" tour features the album in its entirety, reuniting many of the musicians who played on the album and subsequent tour.  I caught up with the show on Tuesday when Gabriel played the second of two nights at the O2 in London this week. I would have gone on the Monday but tickets were only available for level four, not suitable for anyone with "any issues with vertigo or fear of heights." That would be me then; my abject fear of heights no, more my terror that I might jump or do something silly, decided me on a ticket for level one, albeit further from the stage; quite a bit further from the stage actually, which I will return to later.

The upper tiers at the O2; a very long way up!

As one might expect from Gabriel, the show is an eclectic mix; a three course banquet, each course different from the others. The first section is acoustic with Gabriel playing piano as he launches into Come Talk To Me, accompanied by Tony Levin on bass. Shock The Monkey receives similar acoustic treatment, but as Family Snapshot reaches its conclusion the house lights go down and the band kick in. Of course Gabriel being Gabriel, he includes a hitherto unheard and apparently unnamed and unfinished song in the set; no one minded, even if the applause was more polite than rapturous. Even on this unfamiliar piece, Gabriel’s voice is as rich, as emotional and evocative as ever.

The second course is no less varied, but distinctly heavy in tone; Digging In The Dirt, The Family and the Fishing Net and No Self Control are accompanied by strobing lights and Gabriel's now familiar pylon-searchlight stage props that bow and scrape, menacing the performer. Solsbury Hill is a jaunty interlude to which the band positively skips around stage.

Red Rain

Finally, So; "When we briefly became pop stars," says Gabriel at the outset of the gig. It is as you would expect; the stage glows blood red for Red Rain, the arena bounces and sings along lustily to Sledgehammer, and  Jennie Abrahamson achieves the near impossible by dueting with Gabriel on Don't Give Up such that we don't try to make obvious comparisons with the incomparable Kate Bush. The set concludes with In Your Eyes but not before Gabriel has encouraged the audience to indulge in a departure from the normal concert etiquette that decrees that it is not acceptable to spend more of the show filming the performance on a smartphone than watching the band, and to film This Is The Picture and upload the resulting footage to his website.

It is hardly surprising that Gabriel's decision to play his most commercial album in its entirety has resulted in a highly successful tour, but as The Guardian critic Alexis Petridis pointed out, had he chosen to play his previous solo offering (Peter Gabriel 4), he might have had to content himself with more modest venues than the O2. Unlike the Steve Hackett concert that I saw earlier this year, the audience for Gabriel had a different demographic with fans young and old. While Hackett's audience were disinclined (or incapable) of dancing in the aisles, there were plenty of people on their feet during Sledgehammer and Big Time at the O2.

Playing an arena like the O2 has its drawbacks; while the size of the venue allows the performer to showcase their material to a large audience, it is somewhat soulless, lacking in the intimacy that other more modestly sized venues like The Royal Albert Hall or the Hammersmith Odeon (now known as the Eventim Apollo) have. For that reason, being a football pitch's length from the stage in that vast cavern of a place, I would have to knock one star off what would otherwise have been a five star gig.  For one reason or another stadium gigs often get mixed reviews; outdoor concerts, apart from being at the mercy of the weather, often suffer from indifferent sound quality and where one is seated has an enormous bearing on one's enjoyment of indoor shows.

That said, the O2 is a damn site more successful than anyone can have envisaged when the building first opened. Although the Dome project was conceived by John Major's Conservative government, the original, more modest plans were expanded upon by Labour after their 1997 election success. Mandelson's Folly (sorry, The Millennium Dome) was opened on time, but wildly over-budget. In typical political style the somewhat worthy attractions (translation: boring and of little interest to anyone) failed to spark public enthusiasm and visitor numbers were disappointing (six million compared with the projected twelve million). Ironically, Peter Gabriel's eleventh album, OVO, was the soundtrack to the Millennium Dome Show. The Dome's major problem seemed to be that no-one had a clear concept of what it was supposed to be and what was supposed to be in it.

Worthy, but dull. One of the Dome's original exhibits. Photo: BBC

With the Dome losing money hand over fist and costing £1 million per month to maintain, it was sold to the telecommunications group O2 plc in 2005 and now comprises a cinema, exhibition hall, restaurants and bars as well as the Arena concert venue and the smaller indigO2 live music club. I saw Porcupine Tree play the indigO2 a few years back and can vouch for the venue's more intimate atmosphere.

As much as I enjoyed the "Back To Front” show I would have enjoyed it all the more at say, the Hammersmith Odeon. Had it been there, however I would probably not be in a position to write this; I probably wouldn't have been able to get a ticket. Sometimes monstrous venues have their advantages after all.