I have always considered Peter Gabriel a failed anthropologist.
Like what happened with Genesis, his music is an extraordinary cross between music and visuals – just think of a masterpiece video clip like Sledgehammer – a musical syncretism that mixes differences, contaminates cultures (a song above all, In your Eyes in which he duetted with Youssou’n Dour) and cancels distances.
The progressive rock of Genesis
Peter Gabriel is a survivor, a survivor of the Rock era with a capital R, the Progressive Rock that “once seemed destined to change the history of the world, not just that of music” to quote the author Cesare Rizzi. And if the band, which also launched the solo careers of Phil Collins and Steve Hackett, managed to enter the Olympus of music, it certainly owes a lot to Gabriel.
The theater staged by Gabriel during the Genesis concerts (how can we forget his stage costumes) evolves, with the start of his solo career, into an all-encompassing performance that turns his concerts into real shows: telephone booths emerging from the stage, giant spheres in which the singer enters and jumps, breathtaking projections and plays of light.
Peter Gabriel: music and theatrics
One of his most spectacular lives, the Secret World Live, can certainly be a good starting point for those who have never seen one of his performances yet.
In that extraordinary tour there are also legendary songs like Digging in the Dirt (a song that describes the break with Rosanna Arquette), Blood of Eden and Red Rain.
Immediately afterwards we suggest you run to see the Growing Up Live, the intro of Here comes the flood in acoustic version is only the first of an endless series of musical and visual emotions.
The Peter Gabriel tour 2023 promises to be no less exciting than the previous tours of the English artist. On 20 May 2023 the singer will perform at the Arena di Verona and on Sunday 21 May 2023 at the Mediolanum Forum in Milan with his i/o The Tour 2023 (tickets available on Ticketone).
Visionary artist and perfectionist, we hope that Peter Gabriel’s musical career will continue for many years, with his visual and musical experiments, in a world that has less and less need for walls that divide and more and more need for contaminations that unite.
