Peter Gabriel's most recent album of original new material was 2002's tired Up. Last night, though, his Back To Front tour suggested that far from winding down his career, the 63-year-old grandfather is gearing up for a rebirth.
In a lengthy opening ramble, Gabriel compared the evening to a three-course meal. To take him at his word, there were three sections: a first with the houselights still on (he has had better ideas, but none worse, aside from covering David Bowie’s “Heroes”); a second beginning halfway through Digging In The Dirt, where the black-clad band were fabulously illuminated by only white light, as deliberately grainy big screen footage implied samizdat television, and a warmly lit third, comprising his 1986 album, So, in its entirety.
Despite Gabriel’s advancing years and a look seemingly based on Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, age has enhanced his voice and the theatricality he brought to Genesis four decades ago still powers his shows. Light on his feet when gambolling across stage during a heroic Solsbury Hill (the crowd got to sing the “boom, boom, boom” part) or shimmying like a teenager in No Self Control, he lay on his back and was filmed from above for Mercy Street.
Gabriel lugged a suitcase across stage like a forlorn Paddington Bear on Don’t Give Up and the still-moving Biko was updated to include those struggling in the Arab Spring, in Russia and in Zimbabwe. Roadies manoeuvred giant lights around stage and the eye-popping spectacle obscured his more workmanlike songs, such as the dated and uncharacteristically gormless Sledgehammer.
A mesmerising new song, Why Don’t You Show Yourself, heralded the return of Gabriel’s songwriting muse, but this show was about ideas: Peter Gabriel is still overflowing with them.
Peter Gabriel plays the 02 tonight, 0844 844 0444
