Peter Gabriel

I saw the Peter Gabriel at the Womad Festival in September 1993 held at the Deer Creek Music Center in Indianapolis. It was a fantastic show even know wasn't a full concert because of the other performers. I left that show determined to see a full concert sometime in the future.

Well, the future is now! A friend from Colorado, Mark Nelson, was home visiting over the Fourth of July holiday and we went, once again to The Deer Creek Music Center, to the "Up" tour concert on July 2nd, 2003.

The opening act was Sevara Nazarkhan from Uzbekistan. Never hearing of them I guess I went into the show with a negative attitude, but they were really quite good. A very eclectic mix of world music type sounds driven by straightforward rock drums and bass. Their music is similar to Peter Gabriel. I can see why he chose them for the opening act. It was a great show, but the female backing vocals weren't quite strong enough. However, the fact that she was his daughter Melanie made up for it. It was interesting to watch them interact during the show as father and daughter. Too bad Paula Cole wasn't touring with the show!

Here are some of the highlights:

Secret World - (One of my favorite live Gabriel songs. It rocked!)
Games Without Frontiers - (Peter and Melanie used a Segway to race around the stage)
Digging in the Dirt - (He used a small camera attached to a headpiece that showed his eyes, nose, mouth on the big circular screen.)
The Tower That Ate People - (One of the better performances of the night. It also rocked! This song can be found on the soundtrack to Red Planet)
Growing Up - (He sang this from inside a giant hamster/gerbil ball. However, he stopped the performance about a fourth of the way through got out of the ball and talked about "Have you ever had a flat tire on your car? Well, that's what it just happened to the ball. We have a flat and tonight I really want to bounce!" So, while he talked a patched and pumped up the ball and they started over.)
Solsbury Hill - (This really gotten crowded going especially when they made their way around the pavilion while performing!)
Sledgehammer - (The song started out pretty quiet, but you could tell David Rhodes was ready to rock the way he was trying to quietly play the beginning just different enough that nobody else but the hard-core fans would recognize. About the time the keyboards started Peter came on to the stage wearing a black suit with white lights just like the video)

First encore:

In Your Eyes - (Sevara and another member of her band joined him on this song. There was a small problem during the song because about the time Sevara started to sing the "Indian" background vocals her microphone was turned off. It only took a couple of seconds for the engineer to turn it on)

Second Encore

Come Talk to Me - (They used one of the old English telephone booths like in Secret World Live concert video)
Father, Son - (This was a nice touch, but not your typical show closing song. It was a tribute to his aging father who is believed 91.)

Peter did make a short speech. He said his country used to be able to go anywhere in the world and do anything. He implied that now America is the only superpower and if we want "Freedom and national security, you will need to learn to respect other people's rights." I can do without the politics mixed in with my rock show!