| He had not been seen live in Germany
for eight long years. His new album UP has not been released yet,
but Peter Gabriel and his band warm up for the up-coming tour that
is scheduled to begin in North America in mid-November.
Gabriel
had announced that he was going to play a couple of small concerts
in the time leading up to the album release and the tour. It still
came as a surprise that he would headline the Könixxtreffen
in Munich with a one-hour set.
The event was the twentieth anniversary
of Virgin Germany. It is quite sensational that the organizers
could convince someone like Peter Gabriel to play here live in
the middle of tour rehearsals. And it was the reason for many
fans for a pilgrimage to Munich.
Peter Gabriel himself tried to keep expectations
low. One should not expect too much, he said, there would be no
sophisticated show and the rehearsals had not progressed too far.
He added that he would play for about an hour only.
His appearance at the Könixxtreffen
truly was a world première. August 31, 2002 was more than
three weeks before Gabriel’s latest opus UP would hit the
shelves. During the press conference earlier that day Gabriel
announced that he was going to play three new songs. Speculations
about the set list went wild, considering that he was going to
play not more than an hour.
Before Gabriel took the stage there
was a defilée of newcomers and old boys: Heyday, a very
convincing The Ark, and Slut who are making a name of themselves.
Then came Reamonn and really got the crowd going in the blazing
sun an scorching heat with hits like Supergirl, Josephine
or Saving An Angel.
The next musician was Hubert von Goisern. His performance
was probably the night’s most debated set. Grand master Bryan
Ferry was next on stage, and he captivated the audience with a fine
mixture of old and new songs like Love Is A Drug and Let’s
Stick Together. Dark clouds began to cover the darkening sky during
his performance.
Bryan leaves the stage
which is instantly half-disassembled by the crew. The stage was
cleared and re-filled in record time by the crew. Every now and
then Tony Levin could be spotted taking photos of the audience.
Finally Fritz Egner introduced the “very special guest”
and the atmosphere grew better and better.
Peter Gabriel and his new band took the
stage amidst tumultuous applause. There were old hands like Tony
Levin (bass) and David Rhodes (guitar) and new hands like Ged
Lynch on the drums, Rachel Z on the keyboards, Richard Evans on
flute and guitar and last not least Melanie Gabriel who, as at
his WOMAD appearance, sang backing vocals. Peter Gabriel took
his place at the keyboard wearing a pair of headphones that looked
ridiculously like earmuffs used at building sites.
To most people’s surprise the initial
sound of Darkness, the album’s opener, could be heard. This
song is, of course, still unknown to most of the audience. There
were “shushs” and “shhhhhtt”s all over
the place as Gabriel whispered “consequence” and an
almost industrial thunderstorm of sound broke out causing lots
of surprised and shocked faces. It’s a starter that’s
hard to swallow and so Peter took the time to tell people in quite
fluent German that this was the first concert with the new band
and the new material. He added that the next song was a classic,
introducing Roter Regen – Red Rain. They proceeded to play
a powerful version of the So classic with which Gabriel, according
to his own words, was hardly ever completely happy. He also did
one of his trademarks, i.e. confusing the verses and forgetting
the lines. At least Red Rain was not as embarrassing as the Amnesty
Concert 1998. It was, in fact, an excellent rendition that got
everybody going. The applause had hardly calmed when Peter Gabriel
brought another groovy number called Erwachsen – Growing
Up. Though it was a new song, the driving beat and the fine melody
gave everybody “dancing legs”, as it were. This song
was performed perfectly, for what it’s worth. You could
feel how much the band enjoyed playing and you got a hunch of
how good Ged Lynch will be for the band. Their sound rocks, it’s
straight and direct. The bit when Gabriel sings one verse on top
of the other on the album can convince live, too. Melanie Gabriel
takes one part while her father sings the other verse. Growing
Up was a huge success and it could turn out as a live classic.
“Das nächste Lied ist
älter als Virgin Deutschland” : “The next song
is older than Virgin Germany – Solsbury Hill”. Big
applause. This song is 25 years old and it still is a fantastic
number. This was also the only time Gabriel left his keyboard
and asked the audience to sing along. He himself, however, had
some problems synching the speed of his singing to that of the
band, so he ended up being too fast here and too slow there.
At this point he had got everybody going. He continued with
an absolute fan classic, a very intense version of Mercy Street
featuring a flute solo by Richard Evans. The song seems slightly
out of place after Solsbury Hull, but it still was a pleasure to
hear it live again (or once more).
The
next song “handelt von der Zukunft des Reality TV (is about
the future of reality TV) – es heißt The Barry Williams
Show” and is the only track from the new album that most
people knew from the radio. It was a very straight and rocking
version, played harder than on the album. Gabriel experimented
a bit with the vocals and the lyrics. Amidst the first verse there
were a couple of screeching and far-too-loud keyboard sounds that
diminished the acoustic pleasure. At the end of the first verse
Gabriel clumsily danced away from his keyboard to let a technician
solve the problem. The timing, however, was impeccable: When the
second verse began, Gabriel was back at microphone and keyboard.
The Barry Williams Show was well-received and Gabriel now took
the time to introduce his new band before they continued with
More Than This. This was the fourth new song and it proved wrong
Peter’s own announcement in the press conference to only
play three new songs. A lot of the sounds for More Than This came
from tape, first of all the guitar bits that Peter probably played
and sampled himself. The song came across more powerful than on
the album. It lacked a bit of fine-tuning but it proved that Gabriel’s
voice is still in top form.
Everybody was surprised when Peter
Gabriel announced that Digging In The Dirt was going to be the
last song. It was well-performed, and it was much rougher than
it is anyway. After this song, Peter and the band left the stage.
It was not long before they were all back. There seemed to
be a minor sound problem. Everybody fiddled around with their instruments
gesturing wildly until Peter Gabriel played the first line of Family
Snapshot. The audience was in raptures and the band did their best,
though the fine-tuning was evidently not there. Again
the band left the stage. This time, Peter returned all alone and
dedicated the last song to the people in the flood [at the time,
the eastern part of Germany was suffering from severy flooding;
translator’s note]. Indeed he played the Germany version
of that old classic Here Comes The Flood. The audience were surprised,
some laughed, most listened entranced. In the end Peter Gabriel
received a big applause for some 70 minutes of music, slightly
more than he had planned.
Peter Gabriel left a good impression. He
proved wrong the fears that his voice might not be up to the challenges
of live appearances any more. The new band turned out be cut out
for rockier versions than the Secret World Tour band. And the
band are in the midst of tour rehearsals so one could not expect
a perfect performance. There was no stage show either, varilights
excepted. Gabriel’s performance on stage consisted only
of playing the keyboard for all tracks and animating the audience
to sing along to Solsbury Hill. The excellent set list and the
grandiose finale made up for small break-downs, the lack of show
and his notorious inability to remember lyrics.
No, it was a good concert, a fine appetizer
for the big show that Gabriel plans to bring here next summer.
It was the world première of the new Up material. Peter
Gabriel is up for it again and it certainly looks as if the tour
is going to be something very special. The only thing Peter really
ought to reconsider it the design of his headphones when the night
looms.
Author: Christian Gerhardts
Photos: Karin Woywood
Translation: Martin Klinkhardt
|
