First Chicago show: Full report

When I first entered the arena, someone was playing on stage. I couldn't tell if it was Hurkowe...um, you know, that guy. I was coming in late so I didn't hear much of him before he left the stage. [I later found out it wasn't him. Not sure who it was.]

I saw the stage, which everyone knows by now is big and round, with a big and round screen with lights above it. There was also a tent shape in the center of the stage.

Time passed, and most of people were still wandering around. They played great music from Passion, Ovo and Long Walk Home over the speakers. At one point, several guys in orange jump suits appeared on stage and started moving stuff around. I saw the orange jumpsuits and wondered why are they using prisoners to set up the stage? (After the show, Brad said, "Were they doing community service? I'd commit a minor crime if I could get a gig like that.") It seemed odd that the roadies, who are supposed to be as inconspicuous as possible, would wear blatant orange but oh well.

Finally, the lights went down and the Blind Boys of Alabama were led on stage. Most of them sat down, while a few stood up. They had a few guitar players and a man was led to the drum set. To be honest, other than on "Cloudless" and "Sky Blue", I never heard them.

I was blown away! How much? If I knew these guys were gonna be there, I'd seriously consider going to church!:) Powerful voices, soulful harmonies, upbeat rhythms, and a lot of heart. One song that really surprised me that I adored, was when the music started, and I swore they were going to perform "House of the Rising Sun" when they started to sing the lyrics to "Amazing Grace"! And it worked! A thousand different versions of "Amazing Grace" and they really put a new spin on it.

On their last song, one of the elder Blind Boys who was sitting started jumping up and down in a moment of religious passion, and everyone could feel it. They finished to great applause and a standing ovation. They exited the stage which left another pause.

After waiting several minutes, the lights went down, and to my surprise, Gabriel appeared onstage. I was suprised because I was kinda expecting a full-blown entrance, like on Secret World Live...here he just appeared on stage with Tony Levin. He gave an introduction, and even more surprising to me, he opened with "Father, Son", one of the last songs I thought he'd open with. But it made sense...it would've been kinda awkward to place this quiet song in the middle of "wall of sound" performance that was going to proceed it.

I always get a little, er, misty when I hear this song, and wondered if crying was a good way to start a concert. But then I saw several people rubbing their eyes, and one woman down a row was all-out sobbing, so I didn't feel so bad:) Still, it shows what a powerful song it is for such a simple tune.

After that, the lights changed, and the rest of the band appeared on the stage, except for Gedd Lynch, the drummer. Then I realized there was no drumkit onstage. That mystery was soon solved when "Darkness", the song I felt for sure would be the true opener, and a silhouette of Gedd banging away at the drums from inside the tent center stage. Poor Gedd I thought. First the guy has to play in a plexiglass fishbowl for the pretour shows, and now he has to play from inside a tent!

For obvious reasons, "Darkness" is an awesome opener, but it didn't scare the hoo-ha out of me like when I saw him at the NY Press conference, but that when I was standing three feet from the amps...

To the audience's delight, "Red Rain" was up next. Of course, the lights on the stage and on the overhead projection screen was all swirly red colors. One of my favorite live songs.

Afterwards, it was Secret World. During the end of that song, the overhead screen opened up and gigantic egg was lowered in from the ceiling. Lights were projected off it for effect, but that prop really came into play on the next song..."My Head Sounds Like That". I was especially happy that he did this song because at the NY Press performance, Gabriel stated that he wasn't happy with the live sound of this song at all, an implied that he wasn't going to do it live anymore, to which I thought he was being a wimp for quitting on it so soon.

This time, it sounded great, and had some groovy projections on the giant inverted egg. Especially effective was the projection of gears turning which seemed to fit the mood of the music perfectly.

Midway through the song, Gabriel stood center stage, the egg was lowered and he stuck his head inside of it to create the impression that he had a huge, swollen head (insert your own joke here.) An image of a giant eyeball was then projected onto it which created a rather creepy image, as Gabriel walked around (his movements were rather limited) and sang the rest of the song with this *thing* on his head.

The egg/head thing was then raised up, and it began to open like a flower to reveal a sphere. The Blind Boys came back onstage, was introduced to sing "Sky Blue" and then promptly disappeared. I didn't see that they were lowered under the stage. The song began and lights were projected on the sphere on the ceiling. I kept my eyes on Tony Levin for few moments and watched the master in action. Then I saw Gabriel walking in one direction and moving in another...for a moment I swore he was doing the moonwalk!:) Then I realized that while the band in the center were still, the outer ring was moving, and Gabriel was walking against it, and the transition was so smooth, I didn't realize it for a few moments. The Blind Boys were raised back on stage as they did their part and it was powerful as always.

The band came out and did a really lovely a capella chorus of "Mercy Street" before kicking off the song proper. The lights relected blue-green swirls on the stage to simulate water, while the band sat on the outer ring that started to rotate, and Gabriel stood in in the center and sang. Especially effective was that a small boat was set on the outer ring, and Melanie stepped inside it, so it looked like she was "riding the water, riding the waves of the sea."

The lights reflected a dirt color while Gabriel sang "Digging in the Dirt." I admit that it didn't outdo the Secret World Live version, but it sounded great, and it fit well with the songlist.

Up next was "Downside Up" from Ovo. The lead voices? Gabriel and Melanie. I was delighted with this...for one thing, I always felt that Gabriel's voice should've been the lead on this song the first time I heard it on Ovo. Second, in all the pretour gigs, I've heard people say that they that they couldn't hear Melanie voice much, and that she looked uncomfortable onstage. Now, from the beginning of the show, she definitely had great stage presence. During "Darkness" she didn't just stand there, she grabbed the mic stand and was dancing with it. I almost thought she'd start swinging it around and in the process, accidentally bean Tony:)

But this should remove any doubt anyone had about her voice. She didn't try to copy Elizabeth Frazer, but made it her own. The performance was beautiful.

As the song was 3/4 through, the platform with the projection screen and lights was lowered right on top of the stage. In the center was a cloth screen cylinder that reached to the ceiling. Gabriel got on top of the platform, grabbed a camera and proceeded to sing "Barry Williams Show" He was walking around this track built around the platform, and as he sang and walked, he'd point the camera at himself, at the band, at the audience, and the images would appear projected on the cylinder curtain in the center. Very odd, very interesting effect (and also very difficult to describe. See it for yourself to figure out what I mean:) The effect was something similar to the head cam used on Secret World for "Digging in the Dirt".

To be honest, I don't remember the visuals for the next two songs "More Than This" and "Come Talk to Me" other than they raised the platform back up to where it was before. "More Than This" is one of my favorite songs off the Up, and it's great live!

Now the best part..."Growing Up." I knew that he came out in a hamster ball, but I had no idea...

First the sphere that had been hanging from the ceiling dropped down, and cloth was pulled off of it to reveal the hamster ball. It was then that I realized how huge this thing was. I only saw a close-up of Gabriel in the ball online...it turns out it was only the "inner" ball I was viewing. It's a sphere-in-a-sphere that was about a quarter of size of the stage. Gabriel could stand upright with plenty of room to move in the smaller, inner sphere, so you can imagine how big the *outer* sphere was. He started to sing "Growing Up" while he rolled this thing around onstage. He was in perfect control...the band would walk in front of the ball and get out of the way just in time (I heard that Rachel Z wasn't so lucky during the Mexico gig.:) And my favorite part is during certain parts of the song, he would stop, grab onto some handles from inside his sphere, and start jumping up and down. The result is this giant ball bouncing around onstage to the beat of the music. Of course, the audience would start bouncing along with him.

And then at the end, Gabriel rolled the ball centerstage to get it anchored, and then the lights would go down, and the ball would light up with hundreds of little lights. Awesome!

I know what I want for Christmas. I want that ball! If this tour doesn't make as much money as hoped, and he wants to make a few extra bucks, he should charge people ten bucks a pop for five minutes in the hamsterball. He'd make a mint, I tell ya!

After he got out and the ball deflated, the band launched into "Animal Nation". An upbeat, pop tune, with a refrain of Hey-hey-ay! that everyone can sing along to. It's a nice song, but it's tough following that performance of Growing Up, y'know?

Gabriel did an introduction of the band, and then played the song that got the loudest applause and got everyone on their feet: "Solsbury Hill". Ah, he's playing my song, I thought:) I've always loved it live, and this was no exception. He had a neat little twist. After the first verse, he whipped out a small bicycle (?!) and starter riding it around onstage, along the edge. Then the outer ring of the stage started to move, so Gabriel was singing and riding in one direction, while the band was playing, marching and dancing in another. How he kept from colliding into someone or something, I don't know.

I know the Gabriel snobs hate "Sledgehammer" which made me all the more glad he decided to perform it. Gabriel put on this jacket that lights up with flashing lights. Not just dinky-ass fairy lights...I'm talking hallogen lightbulp lights. Lights so big, it couldn't use a battery, it had to plugged in, and some poor roadie had to follow Gabriel around onstage with a electrical extention cord. Gabriel and the band was having a blast, and the song was fun and upbeat.

Things quickly got dark again when the gigantic cloth tube appeared, stretched to the ceiling, and Gedd stepped inside, him and his drum kit concealed except for a silhouette. Then they began to play "Signal to Noise."

A side note...when I was waiting outside the Supper Club to see PG's press performance, I was with Chris Rubin when he talked to Tony Levin. Tony said that he didn't see how the band would be able to play "Signal to Noise" onstage in it's current form, since 90% of the song consisted of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and a full string orchestra. Ironically, they solved the problem by having Tony Levin simulate the full string orchestra using his upright bass and bow. Hey, it worked. At the end of the song, everyone disappeared under the stage.

The audience went wild, and in the darkess, I was joyed to see the Blind Boys being led back onstage...that meant an encore, and a special one! Sure enough, the band reappeared with the Blind Boys to sing "In Your Eyes". The Blind Boys can easily sing that "In *your* eyyyyyes" uber-deep bass part. It was great!

The band disappeared after that song, but then Gabriel appeared to do one last song..."Here Comes the Flood". It was a beautiful end to a wonderful concert.

Philly highlights:

The Philly show was spectacular! Let me get one thing out of the way...for the Philly show, they did a prop that they had never done before. During "Downside, Up", the upper rig (with all the lights and from which various props are lowered) was lowered to about 15-20 feet above the stage. Gabriel and Melanie then put on harnesses, climbed ladders up to the rig, and both walked upside down on the rig, and sang the last choruses. *Awesome!*

I also saw Dr. Hukwe Zawose and his bro for the first time. They were pretty good, although I admit I liked the Blind Boys more. I could tell that the Zawozes loved performing and were happy to be there, which is amazing considering that one of the first things that happened to them on tour was getting mugged in Chicago. It was rather amusing during "In Your Eyes" when Gabriel handed the Dr. a microphone for some N'Dour-like scat, and Doc responded by screaming in Gabriel's face (in a cool, Zawose way, of course.)

There was the usual messed up lyrics in a few places, but nothing major, and it's not really a Gabriel show without a few.

During Sledgehammer the audio cut out, but he made a nice recovery. Maybe Gabriel's jacket shorted out all the electric for the amps:)

At the end, Gabriel said that his keyboard had died, and needed to be rebooted. As the guy worked on the keyboard (as Gabriel said as the tech knealt in front of the keyboard, "He's praying to the keyboard gods" and at one point, Gabriel joined him in prayer.) Gabriel and band broke into an improvsation of a song called, "If You'll Be My Woman, I'll Be Your Man". The lyrics went like this:

"If you'll be my woman, I'll be your man!"
"If you'll be my woman, I'll be your man!"
"If you'll be my woman, I'll be your man!"

[repeat verse until keyboard gets fixed.].

It was also the first time I heard "Family Snapshot" on this tour. Apparently he's played it every night since the first, and it makes for a wonderful encore. But I'm glad I went to the first show, as apparently the whole "My Head Sounds Like That" has been dropped completely. It was a nice effect, the music was great, so I have no idea why that was dropped completely.

Now that the tour has been kicked off, this *appears* to be the songs he's sticking with, although it's hard to say when or what songs he may switch around as the tour progresses.

Here Comes The Flood
Darkness
Red Rain
Secret World
Sky Blue
Downside Up
The Barry Williams Show
More Than This
Mercy Street
Digging In The Dirt
Growing Up
Animal Nation
Solsbury Hill
Sledgehammer
Signal To Noise

Encore #1 - In Your Eyes
Encore #2 - Family Snapshot
Encore #3 - Father & Son

New York show highlights:

I'd have to say that out of the three shows, this one was the best. The set list was identical to the one from Philly, but the feeling was different. Everything clicked. Both Gabriel and the audience were charged up like nothing I've seen before. Of course, I was closer to the stage than ever before, so that may have had something to do with it, but I've heard others say that the Madison Square Garden gig was special, and that includes Tony Levin. One nice thing about the show was that there were projection screens so you could always see the action even when the action was on the other side of the stage, but fortunately, one didn't need to rely on the screens that much.

My only beef with the audience is that someone told me that New Yorkers were notorious for not showing up for opening acts, and sadly they were right...the place was half empty when the Blind Boys took the stage, which had one of their best performances yet, especially during "If I Had A Hammer", two of them actually walked out deep into the audience.

When Gabriel appeared, then was the stadium full. Gabriel noted this, and said that the people who showed up for the opening acts made the correct choice. So Christine and I got to feel really smug:)

The applause was so great and so long, that for a moment I honestly thought there was going to be a fourth encore as a result. I'll never forget the deafening disappointed "awwwwwww" when the house lights came on.