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Concert: Peter Gabriel
Verizon Amphitheater, Irvine, CA; 8 June 2003
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes
On this early June Sunday evening the choices for entertainment were between a Spurs-Nets Finals game or Peter Gabriel's Growing Up show. Well that was a no brainer! Actually since Peter Gabriel tours so rarely it never was in doubt at all; I was going to see my man!
The Verizon Amphitheater is about 50 miles south of LA in Orange County. Seating about 15,000, it's a touch bigger than the Hollywood Bowl but no less of a place to see a show on a warm summer evening. The seats rise steeply from the stage so the sound and view are good from pretty much anywhere, though you might need binoculars from the grassy area above the stadium seating. In any case, no one sat there for this show and the seats seemed better than 90% full.
Real World records provided Sevara Nazarkhan, a wonderful singer from Uzbekistan, to open for the tour. She and her five piece band played a blend of modern rock seasoned with traditional instruments and were pleasantly received by the mostly older crowd, which had a large contingent of Asian faces.
Gabriel appeared at 8:45 sporting a new look, nearly bald with a long white goatee. He opened the show with "Red Rain," featuring subtle lighting effects, but the stage was not nearly as involved as the one I saw him use on the Secret World tour. The band - Tony Levin ("the Emperor of Bass"), David Rhodes (lead guitar), Richard Evans (guitar) Rachel Z (keyboards), Ged Lynch (drums) and his daughter Melanie (backing vocals) - seemed a little reserved, almost tired, at first, but by the third song, "Secret World," they started rocking and enjoying themselves more. "Games Without Frontiers" featured the singers cruising the stage on a couple of Segways (those two wheel carts that don't knock over, except that Dubya did when he tried one), which Gabriel called "dancing for the over 50 set."
The show continued with selection of Gabriel favorites like an a capella version of "Mercy Street" and "Diggin In The Dirt" (a song of psychoanalysis?) mixed with new songs from Up like "Darkness" (appropriately edgy for our post 9-11 world) and of course "Growing Up" which featured Gabriel climbing into a 10 foot diameter dimpled plastic ball in which he rolled around and actually hopped, all while singing. You've heard of zydeco music? Maybe we'll call this zygote music.
"Don't Give Up" gave the younger Gabriel her moment in the spotlight. She has a very good voice but she's not Kate Bush, but then Paula Cole wasn't Kate Bush either. She did hold her own just fine though, after all, it is a song about courage. Next Peter did "Shock The Monkey" calling it "a song about jealousy" which had me doing a monkey imitation myself, scratching my head. "Solsbury Hill" had the crowd on its feet, as did "Sledgehammer" which Peter sang in a suit festooned with mini spotlights.
Another new song, "Signal to Noise," Gabriel introduced with a short story about the British ruling "all the pink areas" on the globe with their powerful navy as he was growing up. "Now it's your turn," he said, "respect their rights." That was about as political as he got, except for the fact that a portion of each ticket was donated to Witness.org, which buys video cameras to help oppressed people to document human rights abuses worldwide.
The high point of the two hour show saw Sevara Nazarkhan returning to sing "In Your Eyes" and two encore numbers, "Talk To Me" and "Father & Son," which he introduced with a story of his dad and reconnecting after years of separation with a yoga session.
Put it all just a notch below The Secret World show, but make no mistake, this was a formidable, inventive and wonderfully human performance. I love Gabriel's work. Every time this man comes near, I'll be there.
© 2003 - Rusty Pipes