Peter Gabriel's Musical Legacy

God how these things get blown out of proportion and simplified.  I spent yesterday running through all the interviews on the 70-75 and 76-82 remaster box sets and what Phil had to say about Peter's theatrics and costumes was it was great until during the Lamb tour it became a detriment.  Specifically he called the Lambia and Slipperman costumes detrimental  to the music that Peter could not get the microphone set to his mouth or was so out of breath he could not sing.  Those were his objections.  . 

Peter's getting good reviews for his 2011 New Blood concerts.  Although the music is much more mellow, his voice still shines.

More on topic Peter said something else very interesting that he spent 12 years removing the ex-genesis label that he wasn't really ready to put it back on.  They all related to the arguments that went on with Tony, Pete and Mike.  Phil and Steve both were a bit bewildered by the relationships between them.  Peter said listening to the remixes that he would remember arguments of why something was placed or sounded the way it did and I thought he was saying  this took away his enjoyment of the music.  Kinda sad but I guess when you are that close to it it must be hard to separate yourself.   

 

As for live performances, anyone who was there will tell you tours backing his first two albums were the most special. By the time of Plays Live, Gabriel had evolved into a silly, prancing twit who should have just stood still and sung the oldies. I did like his singing of a Randy Newman song in that pig movie as well as his performance of Imagine at the 2006 Winter Olympics.