#4 - Torino, Palasport, 30.9.1980

Last day of three dates Italian tour, and besides the mess of the night before (for me, that is, it was spent with no sleep at all between the station and the police offices), the general mood was higher than ever: a funny episode happened while waiting for the show to begin which raised the spirits even more when some of the roadies pulled a trick on the audience by deciding to play a tape (no cds yet at the time...) of I Know What I Like... The Palasport almost exploded - like they were ready to witness or expect a miracle to happen any moment - but then reason prevailed and the roar soon changed into a giant chorus...

As in the two nights before, Peter introduced every song in Italian, reading from some "phonetically" prepared sheets. It marked the start of a long series of "corrections" that the audience usually shouted out loud and Peter dutifully acknowledged.

The gig itself was not the best of the three, as fatigue was by then quite evident on Peter's face, as this was one of the final dates of the world tour that had taken up much of the year for him. Nonetheless he didn't spare a drop of sweat, and the raw energy of the performance was once again staggering.

The best of it all came near the end: first, during Biko, a bunch of hotheads got sort of carried away and when Peter turned the microphone to the audience with the usual formula - «the rest is up to you» - they actually got hold of the microphone to start singing into it! The sound engineer quickly turned the mike off, but not before a couple of "oh-oh-oooohs" could be heard by everybody else...

And lastly, after DIY and On The Air the lights came up, and the usual outgoing music started to play. The band had already skipped And Through The Wire from the set, and evidently they thought they would just end it there.

But we did not want to hear about it: everybody went on clapping and shouting for more nonetheless, so that Peter was in a sense "forced" to come back on stage. When he did, with all the lights still on, he gave us an amazing version of Here Comes The Flood, and the image of him with wet eyes at his piano is still one of the strongest I bear in my memory.

Setlist

Intruder

The Start

I Don't Remember

Solsbury Hill

Family Snapshot

Milgram's 37

Modern Love

Not One Of Us

Lead A Normal Life

Moribund The Burgermeister

Mother Of Violence

Humdrum

Games Without Frontiers

I Go Swimming

Biko

On The Air

Here Comes The Flood

(This review was originally posted about 10 years ago on my old, old website. The original format is still available here)

#3 - Genova, Palasport, 29.9.1980

About Genova I still have mixed feelings. The show itself was brilliant, and I did manage the front row right in the center of the stage (just on the left of the few steps that were used by Peter and the band to get on stage during Intruder). The problem was the guy on my left, far more than just the average "pushy" neighbor at a gig: if you don't want personal details and bad language please skip the next paragraph...

During the encores the aforementioned worm decided to leave the show to mine and everybody else's in the area benefit and pleasure. Or so we thought. In fact, on his way out, he decided to collect all the front row guys' belongings: in other words he stole my jacket (including watch, money and wallet, the tape of the encores from the night before still in my jacket pockets, etc..). Even worse, they got my (borrowed!) tape recorder (with that night's show cassette - I was left holding the two microphones and only realized what had happened at end of the show!)... Well, that would not happen again today (even though two years later I got another tape recorder stolen, in a different way, at a Genesis gig...!), but that bastard, ass, re-bastard, son of a turd - he knows whom he is - will have my eternal hate. I wish him to be damned and burn not in hell's fire but in a very real and nasty car accident...

I told you, I told you, I told you - you should have skipped that.
Ok: back to the gig.

As I said, apart from the personal episode, the show was my favorite of the three: anguish and fun, experimenting and rocking, classics and new songs formed a mixture almost unbeatable to this day in the choice of the Setlist. This, of course, would be true for most of the 1980 tour, but what was special in Genoa was the feeling that was built between the stage and the audience: it's hard to explain, especially writing 20 years later and for somebody whose chances of having attended such an event are about 1 in a million...

There were no "remarkable" song performances of their own, yet the fluidity of the whole and the real moving of one's heart from one song to the next were unbelievable.

If I had to pick one song only then it would have to be Mother Of Violence. It certainly helped to make it shine out that I was actually standing right in front of Peter while he was singing - I'm talking 40 to 50 centimeters here! even though I refrained from clutching his knees all of the time like the girl on the other side of "the bastard"... Actually being able to see any performer's eyes at a rock concert is an experience not to be missed.

Once again, I have such fond memories of the show and such a hang up on what happened after that even though I managed to track a tape a few months later, it still rests unused in its box to this day.

Setlist

Intruder
The Start
I Don't Remember
Solsbury Hill
Family Snapshot
Milgram's 37
Modern Love
Not One Of Us
Lead A Normal Life
Moribund The Burgermeister
Mother Of Violence
Humdrum
Games Without Frontiers
And Through The Wire
I Go Swimming
Biko


On The Air
Here Comes The Flood 


(This review was originally posted about 10 years ago on my old, old website. The original format is still available here)

#2 - Firenze, Parco delle Cascine, 28.9.1980

Stirred by yesterday's reflections, here's some recycled stuff from way back, when I had just started the now defunct Intruder website... Here goes a review (written much, much later than the original show date, about 20 years) of my 2nd ever PG show, on its 30th anniversary.

This was only my second PG show ever, and I'd arrived in Florence the night before (spending the night with my sleeping bag behind a hidden wall of the Santa Maria Novella station). The wait began at about 10/11 o'clock in the morning under quite a hot sun. The gig was to take place in a field called Prato delle Cornacchie within the Parco delle Cascine - which I later learned was the most famous area for prostitution in town...!

Unfortunately, with a backpack and a couple bags of with water, sandwiches (not to mention a very large Marantz portable tape recorder with two separate microphones), somebody pushed me or I stumbled on a rock or something, and by the time I had stepped up again and made my run the first dozen rows were all taken... I kept telling me that the place I got was ok for taping and I knew I had two more days to come, but still something was biting my leg all the time.

Support act were the very young Simple Minds, which at the time - they had their third album out "Empires and dance" - were in really excellent shape. Unfortunately almost nobody knew who they were, and even less people had been informed of a support act at all: the result were boohoos and whistles and bottles thrown towards the stage that still make me blush with shame remembering it. I was one of the uninitiated, but Jim Kerr's magnetism and the hypnotic rhythm and cadence of "Capital City" cast a spell and I was "in love" for at least a decade afterwards...

Though it was only my second Gabriel show, I had by then started reading UK music magazines such as Melody Maker or NME every week, and corresponding with people all over the world: thus I already knew (or thought I knew) what was going to come. Of course, though, the feeling must have been quite different from the journey of discovery during the Uk February tour that same year!

Peter tried to begin walking from the audience as in the British theaters, but since the crowd was packed too tight and swaying madly, after about ten minutes (possibly one of the longest Intruder loops ever - together with Torino - but see below for a different story) he and the musicians gave up and simply walked on stage from the sides... I won't go into a song by song detailed review here (got an other 120 or so articles to write!) but after almost twenty years I still remember clearly three exceptionally impressive moments of that show.

First of all the crowd wouldn't hold still for the first 30-40 minutes or so, and since those at the front would not sit down those at the back kept throwing bottles, cans, bags and even sandwiches or whatever in front of them: on my tape, during Milgram's 37, one can actually hear a very clear "sdeng!" of a coke can hitting my head... I didn't utter a word fearing I'd spoil the tape, but it was useless 'cos of all the commotion from those around me searching for water and bandages to medicate me (there was no need to, luckily).

More to the point, musically, an absolutely amazing moment was the extended and improvised finale to Lead A Normal Life: the crowd just started clapping rhythmically (God knows why you should clap during a very quiet and fading piano riff, but there you have it: Italian audiences!!!). Peter and the rest of the band took up this rhythm and began jamming for a minute or two, while Jerry Marotta kept Moribund's beat and they all went into that song.

Finally, a really brilliant version of I go Swimming: maybe because at the time it was an almost completely unheard of song, but that early arrangement and the shouted out loud "gabrielese" was so full of energy that it remains to this day one of my favorite executions ever (1982/3 versions were much too lame and subdued in comparison), together with the one from two days later (which you'll find on these pages in due time...).

Setlist

Intruder
The Start
I Don't Remember
Solsbury Hill
Family Snapshot
Milgram's 37
Modern Love
Not One Of Us
Lead A Normal Life
Moribund The Burgermeister
Mother Of Violence
Humdrum
Games Without Frontiers
And Through The Wire
I Go Swimming


Biko
Here Comes The Flood

(This review was originally posted about 10 years ago on my old, old website. The original format is still available here)

#171 - Verona, Arena, 26.9.2010

Exactly 30 years ago today, Peter arrived in Italy for his first ever solo tour in our country. The first show on the 28th of September (followed by Genova and Torino), was in fact preceded by a tv appearance on a Saturday Night tv program - La Gondola d'Oro. If I'm not mistaken, the event took place on the stage of the Venice Casino, and he mimed "Games Without Frontiers" (his then 'current' single) using a weird sort of 'deforming lens': in fact, it was one of those magnifying screens which used to be sold in mail order catalogues with the promise of "enlarging your tv screen to cinema proportions"... Not totally dissimilar from the X-Ray vision glasses that would let you see under women's clothes, or even today's spammers promise of enlargement pills for a very different goal...!


That said, Peter's use of the screen and having his features completely deformed had an obvious point of reference in the old Genesis days idea of accompanying a performance through visuals, very often accomplished through the use of costumes and masks. On par with his 3rd album turnaround, together with the sounds, the 'mask' had turned technological as well.


Last night in Verona was indeed something very different, but at the same time, on reflection, what could probably be defined as 'closure', the final step in a road taken for the very first time all those years ago.
A touch of eyeliner (*), as usual, to enhance his gaze for the cameras (as the whole show was filmed), was all that remained of the masks and costumes, and even the elaborate set-ups used for the Secret World and Growing Up tours. The (hyper-tech) visuals, on the other hand, were not the centerpiece any more, but worked as a surrounding: magnificent as always, but confined to the back, the top and the sides. Not forgetting the orchestra, of course, which makes itself for a great visual experience.


But this time around Peter was at the front. Alone. Not even the comfort of a piano/synth to stand (hide) behind. In my very personal view and opinion, this always gave an added dimension to Peter's performances (Not that it happened often or was thought out on such a large scale). Technicalities disappear, or at least shift to the background. Gestures are still important and emphasize the performance here and there. But they too have lost a lot of their "importance", the foreground role they sometimes (often) had in the past.


Of course, as with nearly every concert, sound and vision are still very much two sides of the same coin, and it's the total sum of both parts that stays in the eyes and in the ears of the audience. After all, I have always believed that PG's live "experience" succeeds exactly in bringing this synergy to levels 99,99% of the other bands will never even dream about.
Well, this time around, his voice has become an unfettered, self-sufficient medium. To me that was, no, THAT IS the main appeal of Scratch My Back, but I honestly had no idea that it would work so well on stage. The London shows in march did convince me it could be done, but they were nearly "too perfect", and it was only in Verona that the proof was there for everyone who wanted to hear: from whispers to shouts, from barely reached notes to ripping cries, it felt like being at the feet of an erupting volcano, waiting anxiously for the emotional lava to pour down all over me.


I "saw" part of the show through the display of my small camera, and the quickly advancing presbyopia actually helped me "unfocus" the visual side almost completely. I was holding the camera but not looking at it... And I was surprised to find out that it did not matter one iota! Also, though we were sure lucky in getting the fullest setlist on the tour until now, in a sense, even songs didn't matter: I can't single out one, either in a positive or a negative sense. Anger and fear, despair and lightheadedness, sheer happiness and love: they all came through as immensely dense flows of emotion.


The overall effect of the show was to bring back so many memories, impressions, even proper flashbacks... In 30 years of travelling around seeing PGPL, I have lost count of the number of people I met, befriended ("liked" in this facebook age), travelled with for a few days or weeks, saw again once or hundreds of times. Some I still hear semi-regularly, others I have lost touch with. But especially in Italy, going back to the beginning of this post, I was suddenly overwhelmed by all the different kind of people and relationships I have gone through thanks to PG. Shaking hands, saying hello to faces I distantly remember but can't exactly place, embracing casual friends whom I shared hours of queues with or wondering why that one person did not show up and god knows hiw he is doing... Wether we made together one show or a hundred, as I think I made clear earlier on, it's all a matter of emotions. Given, received, exchanged. No need for naming any names, as the end of this long and winded post was simply to say this:

Thanks to anyone and everyone I have met and hopefully will meet next on the road. It has made the last 30+ years of my life so much fuller and happier!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(*) Actually, reading Dickie Chappell's Tour Diary, I found out that the make up session lasted so long that the show was delayed (for nearly half an hour!!!) because of it. If it was indeed so, must say I guess nobody in the Arena really noticed... We'll have to wait for the dvd to find out ;-)

Setlist


Heroes
The Boy In The Bubble
Mirrorball
Flume
Listening Wind
The Power Of The Heart
My Body Is A Cage
The Book Of Love
I Think It's Going To Rain Today
Après Moi (Le Deluge)
Philadelphia
Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Wallflower

San Jacinto
Digging In The Dirt
The Drop
Signal To Noise
Downside Up
Mercy Street
The Rhythm Of The Heat
Blood Of Eden
Intruder
Red Rain
Washing Of The Water
Darkness
Solsbury Hill

In Your Eyes
Don't Give Up
The Nest That Sailed The Sky

Intruder@Verona