NEW BLOOD - LIVE IN LONDON

Peter Gabriel's music with no drums, guitars, bass, this is what this Blu-Ray is. It's new arrangements of songs with orchestra and a couple of females vocalists. So those news versions are classical oriented and are definitively more relaxed than the original songs. There is also about four songs taken from others composers. Those songs didn't grab my attention as very interesting songs, as some late Gabriel's songs, like "In Your Eyes" and "Don't Give Up". My favorite songs are from my favorite cd, and it's "The Rhythm Of The Heat" and "San Jacinto".

The music is more of a background sound to let the beautiful voice of Peter shines. The picture quality is excellent as the DTS-HD sound. I don't know if i can recommend this for all Peter Gabriel's fans. Maybe they will be disappointed with the quiet atmosphere and sound, missing the rock environement. For me, i didn't feel enough brilliant moments to enjoy the performance from start to finish.

The Orchestral Peter Gabriel.

Well mostly, it includes four covers (from Scratch My Back) but the orchestra is always there. This isn't orchestra as an accompaniment to band, or doing covers of prog with cameos by band members, or an integration of an orchestra with the band. Here the orchestra is the band, fronted by Peter. His daughter, Melanie, joins in as part of backing duet with Ane Brun, but there's also some duet action between Peter and each of the two, and trio with the three. Thankfully no opera going on.

The whole stage show is an entertaining accessory to the music and just some slight touches here and there where things were altered/enhanced for the sake of the DVD. I have a mere surround sound Blu-Ray but there is also a 3D package and an extreme deluxe package. I wouldn't have known about these were it not for the insert. It's really tempting to go for one of those after experiencing this version, but I had passed on the CD version and am quite satisfied with this.

Peter picked out a nice long set of songs mostly focusing on material that came out after number three. Intruder does launch the set and is really weird to hear orchestrated as the original song was seemed to be such an electronic affair. There is an apparently obligatory revisit to Solsbury Hill. One of the covers, The Boy In The Bubble is a well done reworking of a Paul Simon song in which "it was a happy song in its original incarnation but we stripped all the African blood out of it and we're left with a miserable white man's song."

The whole set is a collection of very serious songs that were already beautiful mostly in their original incarnations, but as offered here are even more moving.

I'm surprised to be only the third one to write about this DVD. The cover picture is bad (blood cells, right?) but the contents are most unique and interesting. I generally enjoyed it even if the album Scratch My Back failed to impress me. So, as you probably know, Peter is accompanied here by a large orchestra and no electric instruments of a rock band are used at all. That means the music has been given a whole new treatment. Funny thing is, often the difference doesn't seem so radical, mainly because for the vocal performances there are no big differences on many songs. On the other hand that's a pity (because the listener is already prepared for major differences), but on the other hand, it might turn out to be alienating (both for the liestener and for Peter Gabriel himself) with more radical changes in everything.

It's a hard task to compete with the rock approach familiar to the fan, but probably this project doesn't even care about that. And as someone said in the the extra film "Blood Donors", there have been people who have enjoyed this concert but who are not fans of Gabriel albums at all. Over all mr. Metcalfe has done a fine job with the arrangements. The orchestra is used very thoughtfully: instead of full, string-heavy orchestral sound the arrangements favour more delicate nuances and variety. Gabriel is also accompanied by his daughter Melanie and youngish Norwegian artist Ane Brun (mainly on backing vocals but each gets a duet; Ane is great on 'Don't Give Up').

Track selection is very good, with seldom heard early jewels like 'Intruder', 'Wallflower', 'The Rhythm of the Heat' - plus 'San Jacinto', Red Rain' & 'Mercy Street', three of my all-time favourite PG songs. Generally this selection is quite far from the hits / best known songs, though inclusions such as 'Solsbury Hill', 'Biko', 'In Your Eyes' (with guest vocals of African lady Sevara Nazarkhan) and 'Digging in the Dirt' are wise. Gabriel has notably grown older (in a charming and elegant way!) but his vocals still work like hell.

The visual side is a bit too digital and postmodern for my taste, but quite well in balance with the artist and his own style. Despite that 'coldness' in the visual effects, the concert does have some warmth, and I'd recommend this to Gabriel fans.

Symphonic Gabriel?

Bought a new Blu-ray player last week ad the store had several disks to select from their stock as a gift, so I went with New Bloodeven when I have many PETER GABRIEL DVD's and thought it was more of the same, luckily I was wrong, because this show at the Hammersmith Apollo in London really caught me by surprise.

The music is practically new, because the arrangements of well known classics performed exclusively by an orchestra are more relaxed and absolutely original, of course I miss the drums and Tony Levin, but the music and orchestration is so beautiful, that made me forget the band

Normally recognized artists don't take risks, they know a song is popular and perform them in the way people loves them but Peter has always been an adventurous musician who constantly reinvents himself, and obviously he's not ready to change so gave us an unprecedented presentation for him and to be honest passed the test with honors..

From his usual staff, only Melanie remains (The true blood), who improves with each presentation, but the rising star was Ane Brun who is simply brilliant in "Don't Give Up". Incredibly Peter sounds stronger than in previous albums, his voice is much more powerful and his technique is even better, lets remember that it's not easy for a rock artist to sing with an orchestra exclusively, but again, he hit the nail in the head..

It's hard to talk about individual songs, because all are well known, even when this performance is so original that some sound almost as different tracks, the only one that disappointed me was Biko, being that the transcendence of this tribute was in the strength, something that is lost in this version.

The rest of the album is simply brilliant, with a softer and much more moving atmosphere, specially the obligatory version of Solsbury Hill that made me feel real sadness for his departure from GENESIS, a sentiment that I never felt with his happier Rock versions.

A good artist can surprise us with new songs, a great artist like is able to surprise us with songs we know perfectly, and that's a huge merit, so he deserves a special recognition and a rating of 4 stars that would be 4.5 if our system allowed it.