I’m 20 years older, 20 pounds heavier and bald

Last year, when Peter Gabriel announced his first tour since 2016, I quite fancied going because I'd never seen him live.  And then I saw the price of the tickets, with the cheapest ones I could find being £160 - which somewhat cooled my enthusiasm to see the old fella.  And that was very much that - until I got an offer for free tickets through work, making this far and away my best work freebie so far!  A little known fact is that, when seeing Peter Gabriel it's compulsory to take someone called Steve with you - unfortunately Mr Chowne had a prior engagement, but fortunately Mr Thomson was able to step up to the plate.

So after a lovely chat in the sunshine and a quick pint at All Bar One (us old guys even got a table!) we headed in to take our seats.  We allowed plenty of time to spare because we'd been warned he was going to start on time - but surely anyone who knew about Pete would have suspected that, right?  

Well, the answer to that was a very definite "No" as we spent the first song either watching people file past us in the aisle or have to stand up to let people into our row (one of whom decided two minutes later to go and get some more beers).   Grrrrr.  And even more annoyingly it was a very low-key start with Pete and his mates all gathered round a "camp fire" noodling with the instruments - it wasn't a song I recognised, but it sounded pretty fine.  And, although the tempo was upped somewhat soon after, that was very much the theme to the first half - of the first ten songs, I only recognised "Digging In The Dirt" (which was on Us, his 1992 album).  I'm not a hardcore PG fan, but I was very much not in the minority here - there were some people who cheered every song but as someone down the row put it so eloquently "they're the fucking hardcore fans who know bloody everything".

It's fair to say he engaged most of the crowd with his final song before the break - I assume you've heard of "Sledgehammer"?  And very fine it sounded too - and it also featured some amusing boy band dancing!  There was a marked difference in mobility between this sprightly 73 year old and the 76 year old I saw at my last gig (look at me hanging out with the young dudes).

The second half started in a very similar vein with an annoying stream of people returning for the first five minutes whilst a delicate song was being tenderly presented to us - what is it with these people?  They've spent a load of money to be here and they miss loads of it (or watch it through their phone) - ooh, I'm such an old man.  Even more bizarre was the guy sat behind us who turned up 30 minutes late and stayed for about 20 minutes before announcing loudly "I'm going now" - and that was the last we saw of him!

The second half definitely featured more tracks I knew with him offering up "Red Rain", "Don't Give Up", "Big Time" and "In Your Eyes" from So and "Solsbury Hill" and "Biko" (an effective finale) from earlier albums - all of which were done very well.

What Peter is very good at is sharing the credit - and there were plenty of people up there with him and a lot of credit to go round.  He had three old faithfuls with him - Tony Levin (bass and Chapman stick - I don't think I've ever seen one of them before), Manu Katché (drums) and David Rhodes (guitar), all of whom he's worked with since at least So.  And then there was the youngsters - Don-E (keyboards), Richard Evans (flute, guitar), Ayanna Witter-Johnson (cello, piano, vocals), Marina Moore (violin, vocals) and Josh Shpak (trumpet, violin, French horn and vocals - and who doesn't love to see a French horn up there?).  And you'd have to say they all know their way round their instruments - if I was forced to call anyone out in particular, I'd go for Tony, Ayanna and Josh but they all positively shone when given their moment in the spotlight and otherwise blended together seamlessly.

And - at the same time as we were being treated aurally, we were also being bombarded visually - Pete has called on his artist mates to provide video accompaniments for each song.  I'd have to say I don't exactly remember any of them, but they were all nice enough to look at.  One minor quibble would be the ones they projected on screens in front of the band - I suspect it looked impressive straight on, but just gave the impression we were watching a big telly from where I was - fortunately they only tried that for a couple of tracks.

So - did the whole "playing loads of new stuff" work out?  For me it did, but I can understand that some people might have felt a bit "I paid loads of cash, I wanted to him to play songs I know" - I'd say that most people were pretty respectful though (once they were in their seats).  It certainly warranted careful attention and I'll be making an effort to listen to the album when it finally appears - the new songs that jumped out for me were "Panopticon", "i/o" (easy to remember!) and "And Still" (with some beautiful cello from Ayanna - and it's not going to be the last time we mention her).  Of the old faves, I'd call out "Sledgehammer" (you have to check out the dancing!), "Red Rain" and "Solsbury Hill" as being fine, but "Don't Give Up" was so, so very fine - Ayanna had some big boots to fill there and she did it so well.

All in all, it was a very fine gig or, probably more accurately, a performance - the septuagenarians have really spoilt me so far this year (and I'm off to see Elton again this weekend).  The only way it could have been improved was if people had decided to take their seats on time - I really don't understand what was going on there (it was a lot worse than anything else I can remember going to).  I don't think I can blame Pete for that - but I might ask my boss whether it's something the venue can do something about.  And thank you to Mr Thomson for excellent company, being chatty when required, but quiet during the show - take note, anyone else who gets offered a ticket!  And I'm sorry Mr Chowne couldn't make it, because I suspect he just might have enjoyed it.