RECENT ITEMS»

Peter Gabriel
Chastain Park
Filter Grade: 90%
by David Iskra | 01.01.2007

Peter Gabriel would make a great CIA agent. He recently slipped out of the US into Europe and back into the US. He does his job and gets out of town with little notice. Unfortunately in the music industry this is not necessarily a good thing.

The first two legs of the tour were big theatrical affairs. Unfortunately due to lack of publicity and a "Sledgehammer" to hit home on the radio in the US his first leg didn't do as well as it deserved. The European tour did much better and now he is back with a stripped down show playing the "sheds". That should be an insult to him (its like Dylan playing a state fair) but he doesn't let it slow him down at all. He still manages to be both creative and powerful. While everyone's attention is focused on Radiohead as the Greatest live performer of the moment, Gabriel is sweeping across the US preaching to the converted. Ask anyone thats seen him and they will describe the experience like a patient who died, saw a white light and came back.

Don't laugh at those people. They aren't new agey and flighty. They're just telling the truth. Red Rain and Mercy Street please the faithful while Sledgehammer takes care of the tailgaters. However it's those moments when Gabriel sends chills through your spine and transports you that are worth the high ticket price. Old songs such as Biko and surprisingly the new ones such as "Animal Nation" remove you from your corporate outdoor arena. They put you in a moment. They take you to another place, a place where you truly believe what he is singing is true. The moment you first listened to "So" on headphones. You believe in what is good and you believe in yourself. His music is uplifting and reassuring the way a good sermon at church restores your faith in whatever God it is that you subscribe to.

He is truly an Artist and I use a capital A. Not only a man with creative vision but the convictions to carry them out on his own terms. When your hairs stand up on end it is involuntary. You can't control it and you can't deny it. Whether his last album was worth the ten year wait is debatable but the fact that he is the real deal is not and it's that simple.

The fifteen minute version of "In Your Eyes" isn't reduced to being the Say Anything song. It isn't an 80's memory, it is a doorway to a Thousand Churches. It is over the top to say these things but after seeing him you realize its ok to wear your heart on your sleeve and say what you feel without fear of embarrassment or retribution.

You can buy the DVD in the fall and it'll come close but it won't be the same. It would be missing the point. You can't describe such a thing accurately besides, it already happened. You missed it. If you act quickly you might catch him in your town but Telling you the details about what he played and what if you believe me, you won't miss him next time.

Trust me.