Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Peter Gabriel to Tour North America, Perform "So" Album End to End

Peter Gabriel will hit the road this fall on the 25th anniversary of the So album, which shot his career into the stratosphere on songs like Sledgehammer, Red Rain, Don't Give Up and Big Time.

According to his website, he will play the album in its entirety, in order, and will also be recruiting as many players from that original tour to re-join. According to ProgRockMag, bassist/Stick player Tony Levin has posted the dates, so he's in. That's a huge win.

The So concert was one of the best shows I have ever seen. The music was incredible because he only had five albums to draw from. So we got lots of older Gabriel material like Intruder and San Jacinto.

There weren't any Sledgehammer offshoots like Steam, and he still closed the shows with Biko instead of In Your Eyes.

The show was also the first time he had gone back to being super theatrical, and I remember roaming lights on scissor arms that rolled around the stage on tracks. Very simple yet effective. In "No Self Control," each light alternated in coming down on Gabriel as if they were attacking him.

So it was theatrical but also fairly low budget. There was no back of the stage. It was not in the round per se, but I was seated behind the stage and that was an interesting way to watch the show.

I also remember I had to pee the whole time but could not tear myself away to use the can. Gah!

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on this for sure. So far only a handful of dates are announced. Lots of gaps though. Hopefully we'll have a Portland play.

Video from that tour, where you can see some of the stage show I was talking about:

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