Subject: The Secret World Tour
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 93 12:48:08 -0700
From: li@inigo.Data-IO.COM


"When you put people in the box marked them,
       you can kick them around a lot more easily
                                    than when they're in the
						box marked us. 
So I think it's useful to try and empty the box
	marked them
            and fill up the box marked us."
                                          --Peter Gabriel


      There is a quality to Peter Gabriel's voice that has always drawn
me, something that made it unique to me.  When I heard him in the concert
to promote his _US_ album on Saturday, I was finally able to pin down
exactly what that quality was...  his voice is always on the ragged edge
of possible pain. 

      His speaking voice is lower than his singing voice.  His speaking
voice is deep, rich.  His singing voice is not only higher, there is a
kind of electricity that runs through it that walks on the near edge of
hoarseness.  It can alternately croon or wail, scream or bite, drive home
a point or caress. 

      It's weird... listening to a recording of his voice afterwards and
thinking, feeling, that it's *wrong*.  The drive is gone.  The voice in
the recordings is almost mechanical.  That which drove his words, which
reflected the beat and his body language, is tamed to the recording
medium. After the screaming energy of his performance, the impossible
notes not only reached but sharpened and made absolute, the flat recording
is lifeless. 

      There was one piece called "Bridge Over the River" and the first
half of it was 'instrumental'... they took a four note chord from the
crowd by having the whole audience follow Peter on four single notes. I'm
not exactly sure (it's been twelve years since I've tried to remember any
music theory) but it felt like an *augmented* chord.  From that chord, the
bassist, Tony Levin, meandered about a haunting tune. And then the rest of
the band joined, slow note by note.  Gabriel came in with his voice.  That
slightly hoarse, powerful voice just grabbed the melody and took it for
itself.  Pure and unadulterated, and that was the moment I realized just
how much it complimented Gabriel's lyrics. 

      The lyrics of Gabriel's songs have always touched me.  They've been
about relationships, about self- discovery.  Some are as dark as an empty
bedroom after a nightmare, some as wistful and wondering and vulnerable as
a child wandering, and some as manic as an adolescent let loose to create
but with the vocabulary of a wordsmith. All of them seem, to me, to
explore boundaries.  Be they the boundaries between people or the
boundaries at the edge of ones endurance or mind, they seem to all involve
the edge that is growth or change.  The power of his voice sounds as if it
is always pushed to the edge of breaking. Riding that edge is much like
the emotional edge that most people ride when they are on the verge of
change or discovery. 

      Gabriel in concert is a being possessed, flowing with power. There
is an essense to him there that will never and can never be captured on
tape, on CD, with video.  The feedback between him and his audience is
clear, deliniated by his actions, and he visibly receives energy from the
response that the crowd makes to what he does, and how he does it. 

      It helps that he borrows from everything he can get his hands on to
make his music take on new meaning. 'The Secret Garden' tour had plenty of
mechanica and theatrical help.  The exactly Right props with some really
amazing lighting and really cool tech made real impacts to the power of
the performance without being so tricky that they stole the show.  They
supported the tension and the rapport. 

      "I'm a great believer that you need to befriend
technology and make it increase you humanity rather than
the other way around..."

      There were two stages, the back one square, the front one circular,
and between them was a catwalk with a conveyor belt that served as a
transition point, as well as enabling him, as he usually likes, to get out
into the audience.  He called the square stage, the male, water stage and
he called the round stage the female, fiery stage; and that most of his
songs are about relationships the span the divisions between people, that
the catwalk, the bridge between the stages was what 'The Secret World' was
all about.  What I remember most vividly are those transistions between
stages. 

      One such transition was near the beginning of the concert.  They
opened with the invocation which is "Fourteen Black Pictures" and the
music transitioned into "Come Talk to Me" at the swell.  When the curtain
around the square came down (a frame held the curtain up, and *it* came
down) it revealed a red, U.K.  style telephone box, with Gabriel inside,
and they started "Come Talk to Me".  As he sang, he fought, tugged and
pulled on the phone until the cord came out of the Box and extended all
the way to the circular stage as he pleaded for communication...  At the
end of the song, the cord brought him back to the square stage. 

      The best was the transition after 'Bridge Over the River' to 'Blood
of Eden'... water to water.  He used a 10 foot tall rain stick to mime
paddling between the stages with the speed of the belt, with the musicians
standing behind him, regularly spaced and looking about them. The lighting
was all greens.  The effect was that of him paddling a long boat with his
band as passengers amazed by the green jungle about them. The slow glide
of the belt emphasised the movement and the slow beat of the music and the
transition. 

      Each song was bordered by transitionary music and themes, each
blended into the next with few stops and fewer breaths.  There was only
one stop, other than the ones before the three encores.  The one was for
him to get an ad in for WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) as and
introduction to 'Bridge over the River', as it was actually on a WOMAD
disk instead of any of his other releases.  He also fit in the explanation
about the stages somewhere, I don't remember, and introduced all the bands
in one of the times between encores.  The rest was just one continuous
unwinding of his music. 

      The three encores were "In Your Eyes", "Biko", and "Here Comes the
Flood." The first two were on the round stage with Papa Wemba's band,
which opened and did a fantastic job of warming up the entire crowd.  To
give an indication of just how good Papa Wemba and his band were, they
sang in their native language and the songs were entirely and absolutely
brand new to the audience they were playing for; but they had people
dancing in the aisles and rows and at the end got a standing ovation from
the really pumped crowd.  It was pretty amazing.  The last encore of "Here
comes the Flood" was done by Gabriel with a keyboard setup and brought to
my mind all the images and feelings exposed to everyone about the flooding
in the Midwest and brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. 

      Even knowing the elements that made up the affect, they affected me,
deeply.  It was a fantastic concert, taken as a whole.  I'm still
digesting bits of it, closing my eyes, in the midst of an every day
activity and replaying the wonder of what was.  There are moments when I
wish time wouldn't just keep going... sigh... 

      Yes, I loved the concert.  :)

      "... I think, however technilogical the music may get, ultimately,
it is good ideas and good writing and then good performances that make
good music."

----
Liralen