September 28, 2023

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Peter Gabriel, the two time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and musical visionary brought his o/i tour to Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse on Wednesday evening for a musical and visual spectacle.

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It has been over a decade since Peter Gabriel has been to Cleveland and he acknowledged that at the start of the show by saying "Cleveland!  It's been a long time."  

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The first part of the show featured Gabriel and long time bassist Tony Levin, setting at the front of the stage around a makeshift campfire to play "Washing of The Water."  They were soon joined by seven other incredible musicians who served as his backing band.

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Gabriel told genesis of each new song as he played three straight songs from his new i/o album that included "Panopticom," "Four Kinds of Horses" and "i/o" which stands for input/output.

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Fans got on their feet for "Digging In The Dirt" from his Us lp.  However, things slowed back down right after that as he went back to the keyboards for a beautiful rendition of "Playing For Time."

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This was the only negative I could think of during this show was the pacing.  In my opinion, he should have played back to back up tempo songs to keep the people on their feet.  If he would have played "Shock The Monkey" or "Steam" after "Digging In the Dirt" it would have been a little better.  However, those two songs didn't make the set list. 

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Gabriel said that when he was planning this tour, being a musician, he wanted to make sure the sound was perfect.  However, he noted that "you're going to see some visulas that are different than a normal rock show."  

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He was right.  

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From artistic videos, to beautiful photography to computer animated videos to stunning paintings.  All of those artforms were on display and added a unique element to the show.  But this is not surprising as we all know that Gabriel has always been a visual performer since his early Genesis days.

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The first half of the show ended with perhaps his biggest hit, "Sledgehammer."

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After about a twenty minute intermission, the second half of the show started off with a see though screen that went across the front of the stage.  This screen provided many visual tricks as Gabriel stood at one end where you could see him and the other panels turned opaque and showed different outlines of him as he played "Darkness."

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The screen was used again for Gabriel to create some "smoke art" which stayed on the screen but then disappeared after a few seconds.  It was very creative.

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One of the many high points came when he and bandmember Anynna Witter-Johnson performed a magical version of "Don't Give Up."

 

This half of the show featured other big hits like "Red Rain," "Big Time" and the show closing "Solsbury Hill" that saw Gabriel skipping back and forth across the stage.

 

The two encores consisted of the beautiful "In Your Eyes" and "Biko."

 

What a pleasure it was to see a true legend and visionary once again.  There isn't another performer out there like Peter Gabriel and what an experience he provided for his fans.

 

 

Review and cell phone photos by Greg Drugan 

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