Peter Gabriel to Sing New Songs During Back to Front Tour

Announced today on Peter Gabriel's Facebook page:

Peter is touring the USA to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his groundbreaking, iconic album So...With the So band..
Playing So as a whole set as well and old and, wait for it........ NEW songs too.
Pre sale ticket password is the word sledgehammer.

New music from Peter Gabriel is like Venus' arms.  Peter has sung new (ie -- unreleased on offical albums) songs in past tours, such as in 2004 when "Animal Nation" and "Babyman" made some appearances and managed to get on a concert DVD. Peter does have a tendeny to ticker with the set list throughout an entire tour, with two or three songs done on a rotational basis or some being done early in the tour onlt to be dropped later.

Also interesting is that So will be performed in its entirety, which has not been done before.  "That Voice Again" has only been performed a couple of times in a quiet version of Peter and the piano.

Tickets for the Canadian shows are already available, but tickets for the bulk of the tour will not appear until Tuesday, 29 May at 10 AM Eastern Standard Time.

Meanwhile, Mom is on an enviable mixture of morphine and Percoset as she recovers from her knee replacement surgery.  But she is running a fever and has a poor appetite.  In the next couple of days, she may have to be moved to another medical facility if she still cannot stand up by herself.

Peter Gabriel Touring with a Band in North America 2012

... including Philadelphia on 21 September!  He's also hitting Las Vegas (where I guess hitting is the operative word), the Hollywood Bowl and Red Rocks at Colorado.

The Back to Front tour is in celebration of the 25th (or it 26th?) release of the monster hit album So.  Gabriel is hoping to reunite all of the band members from the This Way Up tour of 1986 & 1987.  Apparently, Tony Levin (the bassist)  is a yes. (PHEW!)  I'd love to see Manu Katche on drums backing PG again, but rumor is that he's having back problems, so it's most likely that Ged Lynch may be on the sticks.

There are barely any details being released other then where and when the gigs are and that Ticketbastard -- er, Ticketmaster seems to be in charge of the tickets again.  You will need a password to get into the pre-sale.  There will be soundchecks and soundcheck ticket packages for most of the gigs.  Check out Petergabriel.com for all of the latest tidbits.

I'm really grateful that Real World made this announcement now while I am freaking out about my Mom having to go under the knife for a knee replacement in less than 48 hours.  Tickets for the Philly show go on sale 5 days after she gets her first dose of painkillers.  I figure out that by the time the drugs wear off, it'll be nearly a month after the Peter Gabriel concert.  And THEN she'll kill me when she finds out how many hundreds of dollars I dropped down for just one ticket.

Well, I've packed a lot of living into my 42 years.  At least I'll die with a smile on my face.

Peter Performing in Germany

Peter Gabriel and the New Blood Orchestra is currently doing a short tour of German tour, wrapping up in Poland's Life Festival.  Peter is currently scheduled to perform with the orchestra a final time in the Hop Farm Music Festival on 29 June in the UK -- but you never know where the orchestra is going to pop up again. 

Peter is supposedly going to making an autumn tour announcement in the June Full Moon Club Video.  Since this tour is apparently to promote the 25th (and a half) anniversary of the release of So, the tour may be a variation on the 1986 and 1987 This Way Up tour.  That's the rumor, anyway.  We'll find out in June whether there will be a tour and where it will be.  Rumor is that it will be in North America.

While the rumor mill goes on, New Blood Live has been released.  I'm enjoying it more than New Blood.  I'll write a reveiw of it eventually.  My mother is scheduled for knee-replacement surgery later this month and I'm busier than any bee.  Man -- no wonder worker bees only live a few weeks.  They must die of exhaustion.

Secret World Live  is set for a fancy-schmancy blu-ray release on 2 July.  It had been previously released on regular DVD and  before that VHS.  Remember VHS?  Wasn't it cool?  And the freakin' VHS players lasted longer than the DVD players.  Considering that POV  is set to be released in a new version on DVD at around the same time, it looks like there's going to be a lot of PG merchandise in the shops before the holidays.

Hmmm.  Suddenly I have a craving for alphabet soup.