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In the early nineties, while new musical genres like Britpop, Grunge, and Post-Rock were beginning to emerge, our Archangel Peter Gabriel was probably at the peak of his success.
Leaving aside the tribal and raw outbursts of the early eighties like "Intruder" and "Not One Of Us" (though not abandoning the avant-garde side of "world music" with his masterpiece Passion of 1989) and helped by the worldwide success of So, which consecrated him as a great pop and rock icon worldwide, in 1992 he released a new album, "Us", born from the ashes of his separation from his first wife Jill Moore and the collapse of his marriage. This album, which presumably bases its conceptual core on human relationships, was released more or less contemporaneously with the new album of his former Genesis bandmates (or what was left of it), who were instead questioning the "alleged abilities and affinities with dance". The tour that followed the release of "Us" (and which was dubbed "Secret World Tour", from which this CD/DVD that I'm now going to talk about was drawn) was probably one of the most spectacular, colossal, and grandiose tours of the decade, probably followed by U2's ZooTV Tour.
Our Peter, to accomplish this, collaborated with the Canadian screenwriter Robert Lepage (with whom he would also participate in the setup of his later and more recent tours, like the "Growing Up Live Tour"), who created a unique stage with a breathtaking design. Furthermore, his band, besides including his longtime companions Tony Levin on bass and David Rhodes on electric guitar, also featured the excellent French drummer Manu Katché and keyboardist Jean Claude Naimro, along with so-called session men like Indian violinist Shankar and Levon Minassian on the doudouk. The setlist more or less gathers everything that was of solo Peter at the turn of the late eighties and early nineties: we have captivating radio hits like the evergreen “Sledgehammer” and the quirky “Steam”, introspective ballads like “Come Talk To Me” and “Blood Of Eden”, the majestic “Red Rain” and the reflective title-track. This perfect circle closes with a splendid and expanded version of “In Your Eyes”, here extended to about 11 minutes, with which Gabriel and his band bid farewell to Modena (yes, the live was actually recorded here in Italy).
To get to the point, a record that any ex-Genesis fan should own, and that encapsulates the second part of our Peter's career, which, from a musical point of view, is more accessible and commercial but not inferior to the first (77’-83’) from a qualitative standpoint. A live that can only enrich your record collection.
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