From Genesis to Revelation

Feeding the tree: ãIâm 52,ä says Gabriel. ãIâve started to know one or two people who have dropped off the edge of the universe.ä

Peter Gabriel looks down with Up.

by Larry Blumenfeld

If you were one of the 200 or so lucky fans that logged on to a Peter Gabriel website in time, then you ended up at Manhattan’s Supper Club in the middle of a Tuesday back in September, where Gabriel and his new band gave a command performance for an audience of mostly journalists. It was the kickoff to a 22-city tour, Gabriel’s first in North America in nearly a decade, to support Up (Geffen), the star’s first studio album in almost as long.

At a brief and informal press conference that accompanied the seven-song gig, Gabriel was asked about the theme of this new CD. "I didn't realize until the end, until I chose the final track listings, that there was a lot of material on this album about death," he said. "There's going to be a lot of dead people -- it's a market that hasn't really been taken care of."

Gabriel's drummer, Ged Lynch, punctuated the comment with a rim shot, but the singer went on to explain quite seriously that a darkness had pervaded his music of late and that it had to do as much with personal relationships and growing older than with politics or the state of the world. "I'm 52," he said, "and I've started to know one or two people who have dropped off the edge of the universe."

One of the departed is the revered Pakistani qawwali singer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who recorded for Gabriel's Real World label, and who can be heard on the new album's "Signal to Noise," recorded shortly before his death.

And Gabriel appeared markedly, well, grown-up, with the hair on his mostly bald head cropped close and a neatly trimmed, graying goatee. He looked more than a little like Billy Joel does these days.

But the former Genesis frontman's newest music has none of Joel's upbeat appeal. At the Supper Club, Gabriel's five-piece band made "Darkness" sound ominous and otherworldy, an effect that's even more pronounced on a recorded version full of drones and distorted clips. "The monster I was so afraid of is now curled up on the floor," Gabriel sang at one point.

The themes of the day remained melancholy, although spiced with a good deal of worldly rhythms and countermelodies on tunes with names like "My Head Sounds Like That," and "No Way Out." Gabriel's band, which featured his longtime collaborator Tony Levin on bass as well as newcomer keyboardist Rachel Z, also included his daughter, Melanie, on vocals.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

There was a screening of a bloody, over-the-top video produced by Sean Penn for "The Barry Williams Show," a song in which Gabriel sends up our taste for reality television through a character who seems closely related to Jerry Springer. "It's meant as a parody, and a statement against violence," Gabriel said, but alluded to the fact that some cable stations would only air the video in late-night slots due to its content.

And as with most of Gabriel's work, this project had a humanitarian agenda that was quite prominently promoted: One dollar from the price of each ticket sold along the tour is to be donated to Witness, a nonprofit organization that Gabriel co-founded, which provides media and communications technology around the world to document human-rights abuses.

At the Manhattan press conference, one reporter questioned the alliance between Gabriel, an outspoken activist on many fronts, and Clear Channel Entertainment, a leading producer of live events that has recently come under fire for alleged anti-competitive practices. He acknowledged the issue and admitted that Clear Channel had approached him with a lucrative offer. "Ultimately," the singer said, "I felt comfortable with the arrangement."

The 12th solo album of Gabriel's career, Up is a complicated affair colored deeply by the singer's investigations of African and Asian music, and is full of deeply nuanced lyrics. "The topic of death and of a bigger picture need not be depressing," Gabriel said. And, to his credit, he presents it with such richness and wonder, it is actually occasionally uplifting. Certainly, that's the case on the album's "Sky Blue," which features mesmerizing vocals by The Blind Boys of Alabama -- just about the most uplifting sound you could ask for.

Still, at the Supper Club, as is likely along the tour, it's the power and immediacy of familiar Gabriel hits from his 1986 album So that gets the people off their seats. Hell, when his band launched into "Sledgehammer," the singer even hammed it up with some Motown-style dance moves.

Peter Gabriel plays Mon., Nov. 18, 8 p.m., $48-$98, with Blind Boys of Alabama and Hukwe Zawose, First Union Center, 3601 S. Broad St., 213-336-2000.

-- Respond to this article in our Forums -- click to jump there




	search citypaper.net