Jump To Menu | Content | Login

News

10-Mar-2010

A week to go before full orchestra production

Things are building to their normal stressful state pre PG tour.

We have a week to go before full orchestra production. You might think that it would be easier as the music is written and the orchestra will just play the notes on the page, but of course we are still working on the PG songs for the tour. These arrangements are constantly changing as Peter wants to try very different versions . As the 'Scratch' part of the show will be quite introspective Peter wants the second half will be more 'up' , bright and faster.

I have seen the great work going on the visuals this week and they look amazing, so it's going to be a unique experience .

We are currently in our arranger, John Metcalfe's house in Oxford where Peter is at this moment rewriting a Solsbury Hill line with references to Beethoven.

Peter drove up with me and sang along to 'Scratch' all the way in the car - really really loudly. Peter's using all his time right now to get his voice warmed up for the start of the tour.

You may have seen we have a great new singer Ane Brun from Norway who will be our other backing singer along with Mel. I have been told she may also be doing a small support slot before the main show.

The combination of the 'Scratch' front half and the PG songs second half is making for a great exciting show that is really going to blow people away, it's going to be very different but a great musical journey .

On other notes yes there will be vinyl versions of the record, and there's also a great new box set in the works, but there will not be a SACD or DVD A release. Some European Special Edition CD's came with a code that allows download of a 48k 24bit version through Bowers and Wilkins Society of Sound and we're looking at adding a 96k version to the box set as part of a limited memory stick design.

Back to london to keep running through both half's of the show with PG and Mel .

We are in a film studio next week with the whole production so will do a report from there.

Dickie Chappell

tourprep.jpg

12-Dec-2009

New Blood - A very different type of tour preparation

This is a very different type of tour preparation.

Normally we would be loading up computers and samplers and finding both old and new sounds to play-out with the band. Instead myself and the EVER READY Mark Claydon are hard at work helping Peter and our arranger John Metcalfe come up with new orchestral arrangements of Peter's songs.

There are going to be many pleasant surprises for people, as there will be songs arranged for the 'New Blood' tour that Peter has not played in this way before.
Our work right now is finding studio vocals of older songs that Peter and John can use to get going, as well as makeing sure Dave T; our tour manager, is up-to-date with how many musicians we are going to need on stage - as this seems to keep getting bigger each week .

Normally tour-prep would be a month before the tour, but its different this time as although we have this new Scratch record finished and arranged, we don't have the PG songs ready - of course we need these done, ready to work with the orchestra for March . I think we will have a few shows in North america in addition to the European dates, so it will be great to get over the water, we've not played there for ages .

Roll on the holiday as I really need to take a break. Next year is going to be busy with promoting this new record as well as getting on in the studio with the; almost finished' PG own songs record.

22-Mar-2009

Buenos Aires

This was a big stadium in the centre of the city, and very hot for all the load in. It was so hot on stage as the sun shone directly on it and made it hard to set up all the equipent in one go.
We were set up in time for a longer sound check, it was a big show and being filmed.

It was much harder to hear the show on stage as the sound refelcted around the stadium much more than at the previous shows, they were open and this stauim was closed in.
The set changed here 'Down To Earth' was taken off and 'Big Time' added in it's place. This made the set feel faster.
This audience was amazing, especially due to its size. We had 36,000 people all singing along to 'Solsbury Hill' and singing the guitar melody line.

Peter relaxed more as this show got going and started to smile in reaction to the crowd response. 'San Jacinto' is becoming the centre peice of the show, closely followed by 'Red Rain' at the end of the set, for which the video display is very powerful.

images from production rehearsals)

RC_tour04.jpg
RC_tour05.jpg

20-Mar-2009

Lima

Suddenly we are in a very different country, the feel is happier and the imigration officers wear suits and not uniforms. When you go though imigration they say 'welcome to Peru', I like that.
Lima was a big contast to Caracas because whereas there it had been very green and humid, this was very dry and on the edge of a desert.

The show did not start untill 10:45 pm, so we got quite tired during the evening, but once the show had started it was fine and full of energy as usual.
This show felt much more confident and fun, than before, the crowd was much bigger and sang along a lot - in some cases they felt louder than the P.A.

We also had added CO2 with 'Steam' from the fire extinguishers, though they didn't seem to be that new and died before the end of the song.

This time we got a carpet put all along the front of the stage to stop Peter slipping, which helped a lot, though maybe too much as Peter likes to slide a bit while on stage, just not right off it.

So the show was good but it feels like we need a few more to really get going.

RC_tour03.jpg

18-Mar-2009

Caracas

The first show day arrived and we got all our gear in time, but only just.

Venezuela felt like a strange place to be, though we did meet lots of happy people. The area around our hotel was fine during the day but after dark the streets beacme no-go areas. Since we left, news reports about Venezuela have not been good. The show however was in a very beautiful university campus, which is surrounded by big green hills, it's a really great location.

The set was good and going well until 4 songs in, when Peter comes right off stage and said that it's was too wet underfoot, so we needed to get towels to mop up the wet floor. The condensaton from a sudden change in tempreature made everything all wet especially the flooring, so Peter was slipping all over the stage. We trtied to clear it but it got worse so Michele (our bass tech and stage manager) gallantly came to the rescue. Peter came off stage again and shouted that he needed sand on the stage to soak up the water, so off went Michele who returned with a bucket. He then walked all around the stage before 'Games Without Frontiers', looking like he was out in the feilds planting seeds as he threw the sand that he had found all over the front of the stage.

After that the night briefly settled down and for a while it did not feel like the first show. With 'San Jacinto' back in the set, it felt right to go from the new video dispaly part of the show to the moving lights and Peter's ending, using the mirror and a varilight at the front of the stage. Then the condensation got into Peter's main handheld radio and made it get very upset and nosiy in 'Darkness' but Simon, Tom and Dee our sound techs sorted it very quicly and we had a spare working by the next song.

The newest song is 'Down to Earth', which still needs to find its feet, but is starting to work out well.

The audience was seated as I think they will be for most of these dates, but around mid set they stood up and got louder.

We had a few songs ready to go in the encores but Peter ended up choosing 'Red Rain' and 'Biko' to finish, it worked really well - a big finish to the set.

Next stop Peru.

RC_tour01.jpg
RC_tour02.jpg

Tour Diary Archive


Back To Top | © 2010 Peter Gabriel Ltd, Box Mill, Mill Lane, Box, Wiltshire, SN13 8PL, England | Registered Number 1102482 | Terms & Conditions | Not Logged In