Reading: A House for Mr. Biswas

Moving:

Garden:

Watching: Peter Gabriel, baby!

6 December 2002: Peter Gabriel

As Egg, who saw David Bowie this summer, and I see it, we understand that you want to evolve as a musician, but we'd really rather prefer that you live in the past, as we do. Did she want to hear anything from Tin Machine? I don't know, maybe she did. I know I'd want to hear songs from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. And, uh, "Let's Dance." And "Changes," because, well, these children that you spit on/ as they try to change their world/ are quite immune to your consultations/ they're quite aware of what they're going through."

Last night I saw Peter Gabriel. My heart, my always. Margo who?

His opening acts are always WOMADy. In 1987, Youssou N'Dour opened for him and then returned for "In Your Eyes"; in 1993 Shankar, who played on Us I think as well as Passion Sources; this time the African duo who opened also returned to the stage for "In Your Eyes." For me, the "In Your Eyes" live with Youssou N'Dour is the one version, as "Eyes of the World" is at its best with Branford Marsalis recorded live on Without a Net. I didn't catch the duo's names or their country; if their fabric or headdresses or music placed them somewhere more specific on the continent than vaguely sub-Saharan, I am too ignorant to know. The Denver Post says they were Tanzanian, and they very well might have been; but the Post also said he encored with "Red Rain," and, OFMB, he did not.

The stage was like an iMac: white and clean and round and highly adaptable and a medium for innovation. He came out alone and, saying he would start the show as he used to end one, began "Here Comes the Flood," quietly instead of forcefully as on the studio version, quietly as I have known him to play it live. The flat stage, in the round in the center of the floor, comprised a ring around a stable center with a square doughnut hole. Some sort of shape protruded from a ceiling installation. The ring could turn about the center, and did, just him and a keyboard (with a monitor and a camera). Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

The other players joined him for "Darkness," which I needed to listen to Up to name. His band comprised Tony Levin, David Rhodes, and Richard Evans, as always and forevermore, on bass, guitar, and other instruments; Rachel Z, a new keyboardist; Ged Lynch* on percussion; and his own daughter Melanie on backup vocals. She looks like him (in a good way, for a woman). I had no problem identifying the next song, of course: "Red Rain." For all the quietitude of "Here Comes the Flood" and even "Red Rain," he and the band showed more power during "Secret World." He danced around with a tambourine.

* Scary name, innit? Jed is nice, but Ged makes me think of Gedder from Swiftly Tilting Planet and Lynch is a fine old Irish name if you can forget the eponymous verb.

I should mention that throughout, the ceiling installation changed. The shape continued to descend during "Rabbit Proof Fence" and "Sky Blue," revealing itself as an upside-down egg. So I knew he was going to do something from Ovo. And did he ever. A ring descended to within 10 feet or so of the stage; the Orange People (his stage crew) emerged and hooked him and Melanie to harnesses; the harnesses swung them upside down; and they sang "Downside Up" while walking (the harnesses moved them, but they mock-walked) around upside down on the underside of the ring.

For "The Barry Williams Show," he walked around on the top of this ring, with a video camera on a tripod (wireless, so he could spin it around without tangling cords), aiming the camera toward himself, the other musicians, and the audience. (Four huge video screens framed the top of the ceiling installation; these screens blinked among the stage crew's several cameras throughout the show and, during this song, showed Peter's camera as well.) RDC said Don DeLillo would have approved, so I knew he enjoyed it.

After "More than This," with the ring retracted, the egg peeled away to reveal a globe. The egg and now the globe projected images, sky during "Sky Blue" and now a moon. Peter spoke of how we don't look up enough and often don't know which phase the moon is in (just past new, actually). We should always look. For this next song, we must imagine a sea, and a father and daughter in a boat on the sea. I wriggled in excitement: "Mercy Street." The Orange People produced a little rowboat and Melanie sat in that; everyone else but him sat on the edge of the ring as if dangling their feet into the water throughout.

I think they were reserving their strength for the end of the show: "Digging in the Dirt" they all sang full-throated, and the globe peeled itself to reveal what looked like a disco ball. Before "Growing Up," the ball descending to the stage and Gabriel got in. It became his giant hamster ball, except because of the song it was a hamster ovum. He sang while rolling around the perimeter of the stage, bouncing it during the chorus. That looked fun.

Introducing the next song, he said his band and he collaborated with bonobo apes. He said he found them compassionate, sensitive, and musical. I can't find it on his site but it was about how closely and in how many ways we're related.

The rest of the audience and I were seated for most of the show (we're old, yep), but I exploded out of my seat into the aisle (I did have an aisle seat, thank the Climbing Tree) on the first note of "Solsbury Hill" and I'm not sure my feet touched ground until the song ended and he came out in a jacket covered in lightbulbs and I knew I was going to have to deal with "Sledgehammer." It's a fun song, fine. "Signal to Noise" kinda lowered the energy level after that, at least for me who doesn't love Up as much as his previous work.

The next song brought it up again: "In Your Eyes." Richard Evans played flute and the Tanzanian duo reappeared to help out with the chorus. Peter Gabriel is old: I didn't expect him to do anything higher pitched, and he didn't; and he didn't ululate or carry some of the notes as long as he used to. Did that matter? It did not. They all still danced in their skipping way, which made me very happy. Not just the video camera before but almost all of the instruments, including Levin's several basses, were wireless, to facilitate the parts of the stage turning and for proper bouncing and leaping and dancing.

I was disappointed he didn't close with "Biko" but I'm not prepared to acknowledge he pulled a U2 (which stopped closing with "40" when they decided, before I last saw them, not to do anything pre-Joshua Tree. CLH saw them in the past two years and they had pulled Bono's head out of his ass by then, at least about playing older stuff, but I don't know if they closed with "40" again). Although "In Your Eyes" is a lovesong to me, now and forevermore, it is also the way he passes responsibility to his audience, fitting for Witness. So it's okay.

And not to be an ungrateful bitch or deny that it's been 20 years, but nothing from 1980 or '82 at all? I didn't expect him to throw himself into the audience à la "Lay Your Hands on Me. I did get hopeful for "San Jacinto" or "Family Snapshot" when, after "Sledgehammer," the stage was dark but for one light over his keyboard. Also, a suggestion: Kate doesn't tour, but I imagine that "Don't Give Up" in a duet with Melanie would be just wonderful. Just a suggestion. Also, holy shit, he played in Uncasville, Connecticut--at the newer of the two casinos.

Overall, great show. I heard "Solsbury Hill" and "In Your Eyes," my very favorite Peter Gabriel songs overall and easily two of my desert-island songs. He still stages a spectacular, innovative, multi-media show. He didn't do "Steam" or "Kiss That Frog," the weakest songs but somehow the singles from Us. I like Up more now, including "Darkness," though I might make my own "Signal to Noise"-less version.

Set list:

• Here Comes the Flood, 1977
• Darkness, Up
• Red Rain, So
• Secret World, Us
• Rabbit Proof Fence, Long Walk Home
• Sky Blue, Up
• Downside Up, Ovo
• Barry Williams Show, Up
• More Than This, Up
• Mercy Street, So
• Digging in the Dirt, Us
• Growing Up, Up
• Bonobo ape song?
• Solsbury Hill, 1977
• Sledgehammer, So
• Signal to Noise, Up
• In Your Eyes, So

Addendum: Amanda pointed out a slip of the keyboard, that the song I meant was "Don't Give Up," not "Don't Get Up." Yeah, me, the Peter Gabriel/ Kate Bush fanatic, sure, I know the song they sang together. But I told her no, hey, I did mean that other song, "Don't get up, I know you have a cat on your lap and I'll get you your cup of tea, no, I insist, don't get up." Doesn't everyone know that one? It's another single on the "Sledgehammer" CD. Really.

Thanks, Amanda.