Jun 9: Plays Live

On this date 43 years ago,  Peter Gabriel: Plays Live was released. 

I bought it on the day it came out on LP. I was doing my degree at the time.

By now Gabriel had released three albums and had an identity away from Genesis, where people had perhaps stopped shouting out for classic tracks at gigs.

This was also the phase when he was falling back into the crowd and still using the face make-up that he had been using in the Genesis days to some degree.

A 'Rolling Stone' review from the time, by David Fricke.

The main problem with Peter Gabriel's performance on this two-album set recorded during his 1982 tour is that you can't see it. 

The striking cover portrait of the singer in glistening face paint barely hints at the way he used ritual dances and dramatic flourishes to visually amplify the emotional tension between dark tribal mystery and futurist cool on his recent albums.

On Plays Live, the intricate rhythmic clip of "I Have the Touch" and the eerie primitivism of Larry Fast's electronics on the epic "The Family and the Fishing Net" are muddled by the vagaries of concert sound.

But Gabriel's unearthly wail and the artful force of bassist Tony Levin and drummer Jerry Marotta transform both the chilling reverie "Family Snapshot" and the anthemic rocker "D.I.Y." 

"Biko" Gabriel's salute to South African civil-rights martyr Steven Biko, comes vibrantly alive, its tragic martial pace inflamed by Fast's bold synthesized bagpipes and guitarist David Rhodes' angry fuzz chords.

As live albums go, Plays Live is an inspiring introduction to Gabriel's extraordinary solo ambitions. If it isn't the next best thing to being there, it's certainly enough to make you want to go.
~ David Fricke (September 1, 1983)

TRACKS:
All songs written by Peter Gabriel.
Side one
"The Rhythm of the Heat" – 6:26
"I Have the Touch" – 5:18
"Not One of Us" – 5:29
"Family Snapshot" – 4:44
Side two
"D.I.Y." – 4:20
"The Family and the Fishing Net" – 7:22
"Intruder" – 5:03
"I Go Swimming" – 4:44
Side three
"San Jacinto" – 8:27
"Solsbury Hill" – 4:42
"No Self Control" – 5:03
"I Don't Remember" – 4:19
Side four
This side was recorded at Memorial Hall, Kansas City, Kansas on 4 December 1982.
"Shock The Monkey" – 7:10
"Humdrum" – 4:23
"On the Air" – 5:22
"Biko" – 7:01

Here's one of the tracks from the album: San Jacinto - perhaps the most powerful and one that I love.

And this is the same song played in 1987 on the 'So' tour. I saw this performance!!