Did Anyone See Gabriel Era Genesis Live or Gabriel Live pre 1985?

Possibly was trying to establish himself as an act outside of Genesis. I've seen him say in an interview that he is very proud of both Supper's Ready and TLLDOB.

 

Yeah I saw that tour in Stockholm, Sweden, September 1983. I remember like you say it was out of this world, very theatrical. I was only 16 at the time and knew next to nothing about Gabriel other than the fourth album which I loved. I think I had seen the Shock the Monkey video on TV and went out and got the album. Didn't even know he had been in a previous band . Great show. Saw him in 87 on the So tour also but that was different, good but not as exciting.

 

Peter Gabriel "asleep" in the audience, 1977. Photo by yours truly.

 

looking at the setlists it appear he played 2 genesis tunes, TLLDOB and back in NYC and then looks like the entire first album, 3 different cover songs and a handful of songs from the 2nd album

 

I also saw him at Earl's Court but can't remember that duet. Wonder if he played more than one night & I missed it?

 

I don't think his solo catalogue is as good as P.G's but that's another debate lol. But yeah your right, he didn't play much Zep on his earlier tours!
Both took risks and would have dissapointed those who went expecting to hear some Genesis and Zep classics. In Gabriel's case I think he wanted a new audience and to break away from 'Prog' s stigma. It was 1977 and a musical revolution was happening. He just wanted to re-invent himself and it paid off 'Big Time' lol

 

I saw Peter in Wales in either late 1979 or early 1980, but I'm having a hard time finding a reference to the gig on the Web. I thought it was in Newport but it's possible I went to Cardiff. However, the only Cardiff show I can find on the Web is one that took place at a cricket pitch called Sophia Gardens on March 7, 1980. The show that I saw was indoors at a small agricultural hall. The place was like a small high school gymnasium with a small proscenium stage. The Welsh crowd kept calling out for Genesis songs, and Peter ignored them. The most unforgettable part of the show was the conclusion: "Here Comes the Flood." By the end of the show Peter's voice was shot, and he couldn't even attempt the chorus. He did what any sensible singer would do in Wales---turn it over to the crowd. So, every time the song rolled around to the chorus Peter turned to the crowd, and a gorgeous Welsh choir boomed it out.

 

I first saw him in Aug 83 SDSU's open air amphitheater. He opened with the Call, great band. Then he tricked the audience, who were looking toward the stage by running from the back of the audience on to the stage. The band was wearing the face paint, they used the monkey bars for Shock the Monkey, Gabriel did the crowd surfing thing, and had the reflective disk in his palm for the laser light getting beamed onto the audience. Who knew back then that crowd surfing was dangerous for the artist and laser beams were dangerous for the audience. I was lucky to get third road seat and had a great view of Larry Fast.

I seen him several times since, and seen his waistline broaden, and his hair line recede, but my biggest regrets were not seeing him do Supper's Ready with Genesis, and not seeing his first solo tour with Fripp (in the curtains.) In fact, there is audio for his first tour, and on the Cleveland stop, his second or third of the first tour, he did a song, Why Don't We, which I have heard only from that tour. I suspect that the setlist was sort, even with covers, but darn, what a beautiful song never to be on official release. On that Cleveland show, I have been trying to figure out if PG played a joke on the audience: a male apparently gets on stage and starts yelling to PG that he really loved him with Genesis. Anyone there at the Cleveland show remember this as it is on the audio?

Cheers,

Carlos

 

Gabriel 10/31/82 at a gym at Rutgers. Being Halloween, quite a few people came in approximations of the get ups he wore with Genesis. Very powerful show including some crowd surfing and a lot of dynamic movement (including all Carlos describes right above me). I have seen him many times since.

 

Closest I came to seeing "classic" Gabriel was the 2007 Warming Up tour where he finally did stuff like On The Air, Rhythm Of The Heat, Lay Your Hands On Me again.

 

Did the Call open for the show at Rutgers as well? The singer died of a heart attack a couple of years ago, but PG was a big supporter in their early years.

 

I don't remember

I did see another show there that was a triple bill of Flock of Seagulls (headliners), Producers ("What's He Got") and opener Billy Idol (before he was really known as a solo artist, he played White Wedding and Dancing With Myself but they were not yet hits)

 

I saw PG several times in the late 70s and early 80s.

The first time was at the Hammersmith Odeon on the first tour. I remember seeing Mike Rutherford trying to sneak in without being noticed, not easy when you're as tall as he is.

 

Ironically to me, and I know that this is heretical, but I'll take Genesis 1977 on the Seconds Out tour over the Genesis I saw in 1973, all day every day and twice on Sundays. I'll admit that I might feel differently if I'd seen the Lamb tour, but honestly, I'm not 100% sure. I think Peter leaving Genesis turned out well for both of them.

(btw, I get why "1977 equals not prog" is a popular trope, but I ain't buyin'. In addition to Seconds Out, my favorite prog album, my favorite Genesis album, and one of my top couple of live albums, 1977 was also the year of most of my favorite prog albums and tours, including Yes Going For the One, Pink Floyd Animals, and Utopia Ra, among others. Although I didn't see the tours, I'll add in Rush Farewell to Kings, ELP Works, and ELO Out of the Blue, the latter admittedly an edge case, but getting the nod because it's a double album. )

No early Peter, because I wasn't all-in on his solo career until So, and have been ever since. (I went back and really got into the earlier stuff too, though, again a little ironically, with the first being my least favorite of them.) I've only seen him twice, in 1986 and 2012, both of which were So tours! Fantastic shows.

Not meaning that as a thread-crap, btw. It's a great question. I absolutely get why people feel like Peter's was THE Genesis (in some ways it's 100000% true), and I'd happily whisk anyone back in time to see those shows. I'm also incredibly envious of a friend who saw Peter's first tour at the Roxy in Hollywood with a couple of hundred people. I wasn't into it at the time, but now, I can't even imagine. Here's a nifty little 8mm clip that's all the more endearing for being so rough.



While lacking the pomp of Genesis, it still sounds pretty dang proggy to me! I've always felt like the breakup was more personal than musical. More proggy goodness on a decent fan audio recording from the same show and this 1978 Rockpalast TV broadcast, a must-see imo. Yeah, no giant furry costumes, but it supports my suspicion that if he'd had the budget and was playing in venues that warranted it, his shows would not have lacked for spectacle in the least, certainly not by the standards of the day.

re: his 1977 setlists, there were 82 shows, and these are the covers he played, and the number of times he played them, via setlist.fm.

• All Day and All of the Night by The Kinks (54)
• Back in N.Y.C. by Genesis (49)
• Ain't That Peculiar by Marvin Gaye (34)
• I Heard It Through the Grapevine by Gladys Knight & The Pips (20)
• The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis (9)

So, Back in NYC at 60% of the shows, that's not exactly fleeing his past. I think the main reason for him was just that he had so much great new material to perform. Using the Average Setlist function, setlist.fm comes up with this:

Here Comes the Flood
Moribund the Burgermeister
Indigo
On the Air
Waiting for the Big One
Excuse Me
Slowburn
Ain't That Peculiar (Marvin Gaye cover)
Solsbury Hill
Why Don't We
Modern Love
All Day and All of the Night (The Kinks cover)
Down the Dolce Vita
Here Comes the Flood
Back in N.Y.C.​

"Back in N.Y.C" is one of my all-time favorites of his entire career, and I'd love to have seen him play it in 1977...but did the show really need it? Nah. And now, I'd guess that a major part of his audience wouldn't care. My list of solo songs I'd really love him to play is already too long to be realistic, so I'm just not looking for Genesis stuff from him anymore.

Robert Plant is kind of a different story, because Led Zeppelin's music is still dang near ubiquitous in every age group. I'm sure there are plenty of fans of latter-day Robert who came in primarily through, say, his Alison Kraus collaborations, but "Stairway to Heaven" is probably a little closer to front-of-mind than "Supper's Ready" is for the typical fan who'd never heard of Peter Gabriel before the "Sledgehammer" video.

My theory on Robert adding Zeppelin covers is that he was inspired to start playing them by DREAD Zeppelin. Reggae + Elvis? Sure. Why not? He's on the record with his fondness for them, and preferring their versions to some of his originals. I'll go farther and say that I think he's covering DREAD Zeppelin most of the time, rather than LED Zeppelin. Swap in some Moroccan or Indian rhythms for the reggae, and use the current whispery Welsh-Americana vocal style instead of Elvis, and Percy's your uncle.

There's a sense in which Peter's contemporary solo stylings are (the ironies abound) close enough to what he was doing at the end of his run in Genesis that there's not really room for the massive stylistic reinventions that Robert is pulling off with the Zeppelin catalog. Covers would necessarily be close enough to the originals that there's kind of not much of interest there for him. Other than a well-deserved reprise of So (it's so much bigger now that the vast majority of the people who've bought it never had the chance to see him play it when it was new), I can see why he's got other things on his mind. I think his covers of Paul Simon, Neil Young, Regina Spektor, Magnetic Fields, and especially Bowie's 'Heroes' have all been revelatory.

I'm just ready for him to do anything on the road again. It's been a while!

 

Err"...Glad may have covered it but it's Marvin Gaye's song. Sorry to be pedantic. Think he played it at the show I was at (according to set-list FM) but I don't remember it or, for that matter, The Kinks "All of the Day & All of the Night".

 

I saw him at the Wollman Rink in NYC on 7/7/80. He was amazing! I wasn't there for it, but I have been told that during the soundcheck, he played 'Games Without Frontiers,' which was not part of the setlist.

 

I've been to a concert in a smaller venue in the spring of '74 (Peter Hammill solo opening), then to the Montreal Forum Lamb show in November. I'd be dishonest to say that PG's stage presence at that SEbtP show didn't irritate me. He spoke nice French to the audience and was sympathetic, but his presentation monologues and little miming acts, and generally when I set my eyes upon him performing it bugged me. Now I really love his singing on the albums, and most of those characters he created with his voice. I just didn't find them really convincing on that stage (SEbtP show). Beholding the entire group blowing though, from close distance, now that was awesome!

The Lamb show I absolutely loved everything about it, and PG's thing (acting, etc.) looked more natural to me, back then.

 

July 1983 at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. As Carlos described above from 1983. Fantastic show that I still remember to this day. One of the best concerts that I have ever attended.

 

Have seen him twice in your time period
Arie Crown theatre in Chicago 1978 promoting 2nd solo lp, all in white and his hair was very short
Some shed of an outdoor amp in 83, promoting the live lp so everybody knew the 4th lp.
San Jancnito was the highlight for me. fell into the crowd later on, maybe lay your hands on me
This show was so much more polished and was an act as opposed to a loose rock show from78

 

Genesis: Selling England By The Pound tour at Winterland S.F. in March '74 (Billed as 'An Evening With Genesis' with no supporting acts)

PG did many costume changes behind a round barrier behind the drum kit. Amazing set list with all the key songs from 'Foxtrot', 'Nursery'' and of course 'SEBTP' plus 'The Knife' from Trespass. 'Suppers Ready' was the finale. One of the best shows I've ever seen.

Solo: Car, Scratch, Melt tours in Berkeley and Security and So tours in Oakland.

The 'Melt' show was my favorite. The set included his rendition of 'Bully For You', a fantastic co-write with Tom Robinson on the TRB2 album.

 

Saw Genesis at Maple Leaf Gardens (concert bowl format; not the whole arena) in Toronto
around the time `TLLDOB' was released - I'm going to say December of 1974. We had great
seats on the floor close to the stage. We were completely unfamiliar with the new material
but did know the encores rather well. Pete left, what, next April?

 

re: his 1977 setlists, there were 82 shows, and these are the covers he played, and the number of times he played them, via setlist.fm.

• All Day and All of the Night by The Kinks (54)
• Back in N.Y.C. by Genesis (49)
• Ain't That Peculiar by Marvin Gaye (34)
• I Heard It Through the Grapevine by Gladys Knight & The Pips (20)
• The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis (9)

So, Back in NYC at 60% of the shows, that's not exactly fleeing his past. I think the main reason for him was just that he had so much great new material to perform. Using the Average Setlist function, setlist.fm comes up with this:

Here Comes the Flood
Moribund the Burgermeister
Indigo
On the Air
Waiting for the Big One
Excuse Me
Slowburn
Ain't That Peculiar (Marvin Gaye cover)
Solsbury Hill
Why Don't We
Modern Love
All Day and All of the Night (The Kinks cover)
Down the Dolce Vita
Here Comes the Flood
Back in N.Y.C.​

---might someone double check this, by chance, if the databases are in error. I see that the 1977 setlist includes tracks from the second album "on the Air", Indigo", but I found this:

"However, here for the first time is the unedited Bottom Line recording from the late show of October 4, 1978, when Gabriel debuted his second album material to a highly enthusiastic New York City audience."
Peter Gabriel - Me And My Teddy Bear

Carlos​

 

Saw him in Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor -- like 20 rows back -- in 1982. It remains to this date the single best concert I've ever seen. Great band, great set list, intimate venue, great performance. I thought all concerts should be that good and nothing I've seen has come close (McCartney, Springsteen, KISS, lots of arena shows and club shows) -- it was transcendent.

 

Seen SEBTP and Lamb twice. When costumes weren't in the way the Lamb was OK. Selling was fantastic.! First 3 solo tours were good especially the first which featured Fripp. If you can't see the real thing try to catch Musical Box. Great re-creation of Gabriel era Genesis.

 

Haha ... I love this story! Your friend is awesome!