In 1987 I went with three friends to my first gig at Earls Court in London to see Peter Gabriel. I was certainly not dragged along but of the four of us school buddies, I think I was the only one who had not bought Gabriel’s then massive hit album ‘So’ and definitely did not know much about him. His performance that night was a game changer for me though; so impressed was I with the theatrical energy of the performance, the daring trust he showed in his audience falling backwards from the stage into their waiting hands, not to mention the futuristic and yet somehow soulful timbre of his sound and the tantalizing mix of the weird and familiar that waited for me to explore in his back catalogue, that within a year I was very much a Gabriel fan. By then I had his whole solo output in my collection and moved quickly on to all the early seventies albums when he was the lead singer in Genesis. Eventually that exploration opened doors to other Prog Rock bands from the period and pushed me onto a progression into other eras and styles resulting in a lifetime of record collecting and musical discovery.

So, Peter Gabriel holds an important personal place in my musical mind, even though from that moment in 1987 onwards he has hardly been a Neil Young-like artist of prolific output. In fact for the next fifteen years there would be (setting aside the odd soundtrack and collaboration projects) a grand total of two new albums of solo new material followed by another twenty years of nothing much beyond the occasional new track appearing online, an album of old material arranged for a string orchestra and a covers album which, even though it had a unique collaborative subtext, cannot help but suggest that an artist is low on ideas and inspiration. To be honest, I had all but retired Peter Gabriel off as a creative artist in my head after so long in the wilderness so when he began releasing new music this year from a long talked about new album, ‘i/o’, not in the traditional manner, but with a song appearing with every full moon, it seemed like a gimmick too far for me. Drip feeding the songs over the past six months had not really held my interest and part of me suspected that it may be a tactic to fend off mediocre reviews the album might be in danger of receiving.

But then there is the other side of me that has always trusted the artistic judgements of Peter Gabriel and has certainly never felt let down by them. Then there was the news that an arena tour was heading our way this summer coupled with the thought that this may be the last time he undertakes such a large-scale excursion. My curiosity spiked even further when early reports from the tour showed images of grand stage designs and the man himself in a flat cap dressed like a janitor. “Maybe he is returning to costumes as he did in the early Genesis years?” I wondered to myself. Having been put off by the ticket prices I privately began to feel a tinge of regret that I might not see this new show. However, I was unexpectedly the happy recipient of a ticket to the Birmingham show this past month as a generous fathers-day present from my daughter Gabrielle (who I think believes that she is named after Peter Gabriel although that may not be entirely accurate, I guess the name is always in my head somewhere?)

I travelled to Birmingham in expectation of an emotional night. I had deliberately avoided reading online spoilers from earlier attendees of the tour and was prepared for a show revisiting deep corners of the back catalogue, maybe reaching back even further into the cuckoo-cocooned pre-solo years to material every bit as important to me as the post 1977 output that I have never heard the man himself sing live. It turns out this was not a wholly ridiculous notion, since the gig night I have seen a reliable online source claim that band members were asked to learn the Genesis classic ‘Carpet Crawlers’ at the start of rehearsals but it failed to make the cut.

The reason I expected this nostalgia fest, which I could not have been more wrong about incidentally, was down to the fact that ‘i/o’ is still unreleased as a full album, all we have so far are those new moon songs, so surely he would not be playing an arena show and overloading it with material no one knows? Well, that was exactly what we got, in fact in a show lasting approximately two and a half hours just over fifty percent of the time was given to new songs. And I am so glad it was because it magically re-connected me with everything that first plugged me into the ideas and music of Peter Gabriel thirty-six years ago. Admittedly the band were probably the strongest combination of musicians I have ever seen him work with, not only did they crack open the emotional core in the new numbers but tracks like ‘Digging In The Dirt’ rocked harder than ever before. Still, for me it comes back to simply respecting a genuine music originator who forever does things his own way and executes with style and class. He releases finely crafted albums only when ready and he puts on a show with ideas, thought and exacting attention to audio and visual experience. Peter Gabriel is not a heritage artist; he remains a doggedly individualist creative in a league of his own. The new music and shows he is presenting in 2023 will surely sit justifiably alongside the best of the work in his canon. One of those new songs kicks off this month’s playlist too so get digging…