peter gabriel secret world tour band

Secret World Live

By Susan Richardson

Susan Richardson

It’s a rare moment when an artist takes his established, even iconic work and makes it still stronger, but Peter Gabriel ‘s live two-CD set Secret World Live is just such a moment. Recorded in Modena, Italy, during a January 1994 performance on his Secret World tour, the album and the concurrent video release bring songs threaded together by the images of earth and water into a cycle that explores relationships between men and women. The result is tantamount to a religious rite, merging grandeur with the intimacy of feeling, the public with the secret.

Gabriel draws most heavily from the songs on his most recent studio album, Us (1992), assuming the emotionally ambitious task of reaching the places found deep within intimate relationships. “Come Talk to Me,” a plea to bridge a widening gap of misunderstanding, establishes the urgent passion of Secret World. The ethereal introduction of “Steam” gives way to the song’s sinuous, powerful energy. Peter Gabriel’s veteran band — including bassist Tony Levin, drummer Manu Katche and guitarist David Rhodes — lays relentless grooves for “Shaking the Tree,” “Red Rain” and “Solsbury Hill,” the originals slowed and deepened into an emphatic swing that is exuberant as well as majestic. Yet bitter despair runs through “Blood of Eden”: “I can hear the distant thunder/Of a million unheard souls/Watch each one reach for creature comfort/For the filling of their holes.”

The prayerful “Washing of the Water” seeks to purge the taint of broken love: “In the washing of the water, will you take it all away/Bring me something to take this pain away.” “Digging in the Dirt” captures the in-your-face fury and the wounded vulnerability of an argument and suggests the eroticism of such passion as it bursts into the sexual fire of “Sledgehammer.” Transcending the heat of “Dirt” and “Sledgehammer,” Secret World arrives at sober grief, posing the wrenching, solitary question “In all the places we were hiding love/What was it we were thinking of?” and finds no answer but only the response: “With no guilt and no shame, no sorrow or blame/ Whatever it is, we are all the same.”

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“Don’t Give Up” contrasts Gabriel’s male persona — bearing the unbearable weight of identity and success — with a feminine voice, which offers a reminder that help is present and offsets that consuming tension. And “In Your Eyes” is a jubilant paean that takes abandon to an epic level. In the wake of questions, pleas, anger and sexuality, the song affirms a love that is innocent but not naive, substantial but not heavy.

More than Gabriel’s Plays Live (1983), this album maintains a powerful continuity that loses neither pace nor momentum; more than the studio originals, these versions elaborate on the dramatic potential inherent in them — the heat and magnitude of rhythm, the human/animal ambiguity of an otherworldly cry. Secret World enters an inner realm that is knowable only through the range of emotion it gives rise to, joining ecstasy and agony into music that avoids being larger than life and instead is as large as life itself.

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Revisiting His Weird and Wonderful Performance: ‘Peter Gabriel: Secret World Live’

Reaching the pinnacle of his popularity in the ’80s and early ’90s, Peter Gabriel was in the beginning, in the middle, and ever shall be, an odd fellow. He has also, all along, been a consummate entertainer whose early theatrics with Genesis groomed him perfectly to become one of the grand and shining stars of the video age. Through videos for pieces such as the sexually charged “Sledgehammer” and the ballad of the working man and, indeed, mankind itself, “Don’t Give Up”, Gabriel tore up the envelope, ate it, and demanded that, in the future, he be served one of better quality.

Both “Sledgehammer” and “Don’t Give Up” were culled from his 1986 album So (which receives the deluxe reissue treatment this autumn), but it was his 1992 outing Us that cemented his place in the video kingdom with “Digging In the Dirt” and “Steam”. It was in the aftermath of that latter album that the former public school student concentrated on making an unforgettable stage show that would touch on many of the––Jungian––themes found across his work but especially on Us .

Released in September 1994 this film––and accompanying album––were welcome arrivals from a man who probably did visuals––and live performances––better than most of his contemporaries––including U2, a band known for its highly stylized promo films and stadium tours. This wasn’t Gabriel’s only live video from those peak years––1988’s POV titillates the memory cells and brings to mind many a happy evening spent warming the ocular vessels ‘round the television––but it’s a damned fine one that retains its own musical and visual character and, as they say, holds up rather well.

Shot over two November evenings in 1993 during a Modena, Italy stopover, the footage looks remarkably fresh and vibrant on the current Blu-ray edition, radiating aliveness from the stage––and from Gabriel’s facial hair. True to our expectations, the stage set doesn’t disappoint––it, too, is rife with props and such that would make Dr. Jung proud. There’s an awful lot of dancing––more than you’d probably expect from most prog rock icons––but none of it ever strays so far from the core that Gabriel loses his sense of popzeit .

This isn’t a comprehensive best-of package. There’s no “Biko”, “Shock the Monkey”, or “Intruder”. This is Gabriel the hit maker making hits for one and all in a performance that is as delightfully off-kilter (read: filled with PG being his awesomely weird self) as his best work with Genesis. Curiously, the accompanying album has not yet been reissued, which is a shame because it’s as good a snapshot of the man during the era as the albums–– So and Us ––which it leans so heavily upon.

Backed by drummer Manu Katché, bassist Tony Levin, and Paula Cole, Gabriel surprises us with new but still comprehensible arrangements of favorites and a surprise or two––the (relative) rarity “Across The River” and a nod to the Birdy soundtrack via the excellent “Slow Marimbas”. Naturally, it’s the hits that come to the fore––he opens with “Come Talk To Me” (replete with a sentient—and possessive––callbox), then travels through “Steam”, eventually landing in the “Blood of Eden”, climbing “Solsbury Hill” and “Digging in the Dirt” while suggesting that, when faced with adversity, the best mantra is “Don’t Give Up”. One of the real stars here is Paula Cole who proves herself an able replacement for Kate Bush during the also aforementioned “Don’t Give Up” and maybe a superior vocalist to Sinead O’ Connor whose memorable turn on the studio version of “Blood Of Eden” may truly be bested here.

The rest of the band––guitarist David Rhodes, violinist Shankar, and keyboardist Jean Claude Naimro––delivers the musical goods with new arrangements and indefatigable musical acumen. Enough, any way, that one wonders how Gabriel could fail to bring a similar energy to his 2011 live release New Blood: Live In London . We digress. With footage such as this still lurking in the wings it seems that Gabriel’s legacy is secure and that the music that sounded positively of the future when it first emerged continues to sound that way two decades on.

Bonus materials include a time-lapse film of the stage set up at Gabriel’s Berlin performance, a making-of film with interviews and behind the scenes footage as well as two tracks that serve as the bed for a photo montage from the tour. The classic “Red Rain”, previously absent from the film, appears as a bonus track while a 2011 performance of “The Rhythm of the Heat” (a track about Carl Jung’s travels in Africa) with the New Blood Orchestra gives us future shock.

The remixed and remastered soundtrack sounds vibrant and neu , the master’s voice as clear and clairvoyant as ever. The ultimate Peter Gabriel experience? Nah. You really have to bathe yourself in the whole oeuvre for that, but this is one great spoke in the greater wheel that is Peter Gabriel’s not-so-secret world.

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Growing up live.

Growing Up Live captures the live tour, Peter’s first in 10 years, that accompanied the release of his seventh studio album UP . The tour saw Peter collaborate again with Robert Lepage ( Secret World Live ) on the production and was notable for its ‘in-the-round’ set design. The show played in thirty-two cities across the USA, Canada and Europe during 2002 and 2003 and this concert film was recorded over two nights at Filaforum, Milan in May 2003.

Just before the tour started, in October 2002, Peter gave the following interview, which starts off by exploring why the tour was called Growing Up ?

“I’m aged 52 now and so this is a good opportunity to start growing up. I was thinking of the beginning and end of life so a lot of songs ended up being about birth and death especially. It seemed to make sense. There’s a theory that if you’re sitting in a car looking out of the windshield what you see directly in front of you is what you think about, what your daily life is. But actually, there’s a whole other world going on above and below you that you tend to ignore. So that was the Up reference, this other dimension. The growing is about finding a place in the sequence of life. I’m working with Robert Lepage because I think he has a brilliant visionary mind. He makes fantastic theatre and film. It’s quite witty, powerful and poignant sometimes and he has what I call ‘high moisture’ content. That’s what I really want from my shows as well. So when we start going through ideas and trying to imagine all sorts of crazy things, it’s a lot of fun. We’ve worked together for such a long time now we have a sort of shorthand, so it’s fairly quick to do. Last time we had two stages; the traditional square, proscenium stage and a round stage. The round stage was a very different feeling; you were more open, more exposed. This time we’ve moved the axis vertically for the representation of birth and death, sky and earth, above and below and the relationship of things coming in between. I think this tour is going to be more direct with less decoration. Peter Gabriel in Mexico City. Nov 4, 2002 © Armando Gallo I was looking at this extreme sports site and I saw the Zorb ball, which is used for rolling down hills. I’d always thought that it would be a nice thing to have and that it would be fun to try doing on stage. Initially, I wanted to do it over the audience. Sadly, I was told that the combined weight of me, and one of these things, would flatten various members of the audience, so I’ve been advised against it. But it’s a fun thing to get inside of. I’m quite likely to fall off. Yet strangely enough, I’m much more confident in the ball than I am on the bicycle. But I’m sure at some point I’m going to come off. So that will add a little interest I think. It’s exactly like having a whole lot of toys, but at the same time, some of the songs have a serious theme and deal with real issues. So you want to try and mix some of that playful element with trying to touch people and something that is meaningful. Peter Gabriel in Mexico City. Nov 4, 2002 © Armando Gallo It’s only possible to do some of these visual things at this scale. You can do different visual things on a smaller scale, but to afford this you need a fair amount of income coming in. It’s not going to appeal to everyone, as some people will just want to listen to musicians in a smaller environment. But I love both. I would feel frustrated if I were only doing the music and didn’t get a chance to explore what sort of visual world some of the songs could open up. I want to play a lot of new music because not only has there been the ‘UP’ album, but also the ‘OVO’ record. We also asked on our website and I think that there were something like 250,000 votes in for different songs. So we’re picking out some of the older ones from there. It’s a sort of combination. Peter Gabriel in Mexico City. Nov 4, 2002 © Armando Gallo ‘Biko’ has been such a central part of the last two tours that I felt it was time to give that a rest for the moment. The band is a mixture of old and new. In the tried and tested friend department there’s David Rhodes on guitar who I’ve played with for many years, since his band Random Hold supported me on a tour way back. He began life as a sculptor, never wanted to be a professional musician, but sort of fell into it. Tony Levin, who’s on bass, was actually on the first record that I did after I left Genesis. He’s the longest serving member, but obviously he does so many other things on his own, with King Crimson and many other people over the years. I think he is one of the most respected bass players in the world, so I feel very lucky that he is always out with me. There’s Rachel Z who is a very able keyboard player. She is better known in the jazz world but has been developing her own sort of rock stuff and has just put out an album of Joni Mitchell covers too. She’s very good. She’s also the daughter of an opera singer and has a very useful set of pipes on her as well. I’ve worked in the studio with Richard Evans many times, but this is the first time live. He plays numerous instrument; mandolin, flutes, whistles, guitar. So that’s fun. The drummer Ged Lynch. When we were making the album, Manu (Katché) was away on tour for some of the time so Ged came in. Manu’s a brilliant player but he is quite a decorator in some ways so it’s always beautifully and very musically done. Ged, on the other hand, sits in this tight box and there’s this sort of powerhouse driving things forward. It felt good for me to try and make the band focus more direct this time out. Ged is also a great percussionist and did a lot of percussion on the record as well. Then, my daughter Melanie is out with me singing, and that’s a real pleasure for Dad. My other daughter, Anna, is doing a documentary about it so it’s the ‘nepotism works’ tour.”

Re-released on DVD on 14 October 2016 and also as part of a Blu-ray+DVD release alongside Still Growing Up Live & Unwrapped .