Friday, September 28, 2012

Peter Gabriel - So, live in concert...


In case you have not heard - Pete is back touring (yes, this soon) and I gave him another chance.  His experimental (yes, a redundancy for him) New Blood Orchestra was universally (and by universality  I mean me) panned.  Last summer, he playing his songs stripped down to bare nothingness.  More apt would be gutted.  It was painful.  That was then, this is now.  As his smash record So turns 25, like so many other artists, he playing the think live, it it's entirety.  This Play an Album live thing was started by Van the Man doing Astral Weeks I think.  Then Steely Dan did it.  And so on.  So, he's playing the entire album live, back to front.  But last night - apparently he scrambled the song order a bit, in order to end with In Your Eyes.  So is not my favorite record of his - it's by far his biggest smash solo record.   Here is what happened in Chicago.  The opening act was Prince.  Kidding.  But Prince was also at the UC for the 3 nights immediately before Pete - starting times so late that Prince technically WAS the opening act.

     Two not Swedish girls really did open with a 4-song piano/cello set.  Pete then explains his cutting his concert into thirds.  Like this.  Acoustic: OBUT (with 'Tony Levin' only); Come Talk to Me – from Us; Shock the Monkey  - Security; Family Snapshot  - from PG3.  Then a Retro set: Digging in the Dirt – from Us; Secret World  from Us; The Family and the Fishing Net – from Security; No Self Control – from PG3; Solsbury Hill – from PG1, and Washing of the Water - Us.  "So" in Remastered Version (sort of reverse) order: Red Rain, Sledgehammer, Don't Give Up, That Voice Again, Mercy Street, Big Time, We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37), This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds),and In Your Eyes.  Encore: The Tower That Ate People – from OVO, Biko – from PG3.   Mini Review: Before playing his album So (in reverse order) these were gems: Shock the Monkey, Family Snapshot, Secret World, and No Self Control.  Yes he trotted out Solsbury Hill, but he should mothball that one and delve into something from PG2 (Scratch).

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