I've only listened to Up once so far, but I'm liking it. Tour dates are up at www.pollstar.com Jeez, Pete, it's about time! Later, COZ
Philly Tour Stop Gabriel may have to make a stop in Philly during his tour...to testify that is. Defense attorneys in the Ira Einhorn murder trial are considering calling Gabriel as a character witness for Einhorn. Apparently Gabriel and Einhorn were acquaintances once upon a time. This may be a bit of bad publicity for him in the middle of a record launch and tour if he defends a dirtbag like Einhorn in a courtroom. Murf
Well, this morning I paid my $103 ($86 plus TicketBastard service charges) for a 100-level seat at MSG. I just couldn't pull the trigger on the $150+ (un-fooking-believable!) that it would have cost to sit on the floor. Besides, if the in-the-round rotating stage show is anything like what they're saying it is, it'll probably be good to be up a little bit off the ground.
That's nuts, to me anyway... Obie, if you don't mind, would you post here what the total charge including Ticketmaster fees, etc. are once you get tickets?
$86 "official" ticket price, which includes $1 service charge for Witness, which is Gabriel's long-time human rights group. $4.50 MSG venue charge $9.90 TicketMonster "Convenience" charge $3.05 order processing fee Grand total: $103.45 I justify this to the extent possible by saying that seeing PG is not unlike going to a Broadway show in terms of its theatricality, and that typically costs $90-100 per ticket plus charges nowadays as well.
Just a note...there was no such thing as Major League Soccer when Gabriel's last studio album came out. I'm not including OVO in that, nor Secret World Live, but that's only because I don't remember when the latter was released. Later, COZ
Saw him in Detroit on his last major tour. It was cool and all, but a hundred bucks a ticket? Plus another for the Mrs.? No thanks.
$45 base price in Chicago...but I reeealllly want to go...argh... I'll see what I can do. And PG is on Conan tonight. Woohoo!
"The Barry Williams Show" was kinda weak on Conan, but then it's kinda weak on the record as well. Unless it's LOUD and you pump the bass. I streamed the version off of windowsmedia.com, and it had a lot more oomph with the help of the subwoofer on my PC. Got my tickets. Section 118, which put them in the $85 category rather than the $130. Not quite so bad on the underemployed wallet. That's one more month before I can replace my CD burner, especially if I go see Me'Shell Ndegeocello as well. Later, COZ
I've never really understood the appeal of Peter Gabriel. Some of the "So" album was pretty good, but I haven't really been impressed by much else I've heard.
I think of him as being kinda like Paul Simon, in that he takes some musical ideas from various cultures and mixes them with his lyrics to form some pretty interesting stuff. If you can get hold of a videotape of one of his concerts, you'll be impressed. It's not really party music, and his usage of sociopolitical issues in some of his music tends to alienate certain segments of the population, but there's generally something in the sound for everyone.
I'll say this about him, he seems to have phsysically aged like 20 *years* since his last album! Anyone seen that new video yet? Man, the years have been unkind to poor Mr. Gabriel... ;-) The new track (and video) seem pretty weak to me as well, and if that's the best he's got this time there's no way this album will be anything but a footnote. -Adam
I recognize his contributions to world music as a whole with his Real World label. That label has turned me onto music from Senegal, Somalia, India and tons of other places. The politics never turned me off (Midnight Oil is one of my favorite bands.) It seems as if I should like him given everything else I listen to. Maybe I just haven't heard the right stuff yet.
Peter Gabriel on NPR There was an interesting story on PG on Weekend Edition. Go to the link and you can download it. http://www.npr.org/programs/wesun/features/2002/gabriel/index.html I'd never heard about this theme park project with Eno and Laurie Anderson. Gabriel says in the interview it's not quite a project yet, just an idea they've been tossing around over the years. I for one would love to see it come to pass.
A quick look at ticket availability for the first shows of the US tour tells me that PG has clearly miscalculated his popularity with regards to venue and/or ticket price. You can still get top-price seats in NY and Philly, which have traditionally been his strongest markets. The only category sold out is the $45 seats in Philadelphia, which tells me he overpriced the floor and lower levels.
I'm assuming the high-priced tickets sold out in Chicago, since I had "best available" selected and got the second price level. Then again, do NYC or Philly have a radio outlet that will still play *new* Peter Gabriel? We're fortunate to have a strong AAA format station in Chicago, but I think that's the exception more than the norm. Later, COZ
These guys drive me nuts with their ticket prices. Keep all the bells and whistles and make the tickets affordable. Most of them are multi-millionaires already why do they have to charge $85? If most folks brought their ticket prices down some, they would have more people at their shows and in turn sell more CDs and (monetarily) most importantly to them more merchandise (which is where most folks make their money since the record company doesn't take a slice of it.)
More intimate = new 10,000-seat arena and probably some massive advance. Billboard is reporting that Atlanta and Columbus have been cancelled because of technical difficulties surrounding the sets. I don't think that this is a dodge; Atlanta at least was selling well. Chicago sold out and he's added a second date there. NY sales seem to have picked up even though you can still get all three price levels (they've got only corners for each). NJ is terrible. Philadelphia, long a Genesis / PG stronghold, is also still doing badly (2nd row lower deck available at $100 each, but $45 seats sold out). Boston's the same. The Secret World tour was generally sellouts everywhere in the US, including 3 at the Spectrum in Philly, but PG still lost several million dollars on it (I saw one estimate of $10 million, another of $10-15) because the sets were huge and they had to build two of them to get it up/down in time for travelling. This time he's doing equally elaborate sets but jacking up the prices so that he doesn't have to have a corporate sponsor and doesn't lose money, but people aren't buying them. If there are more cancellations before the tour starts, then you know he's in trouble. We'll see later today how the album is selling....
Up debuted at number 9. I'm not sure what to make of that. Looks like I'll be the first on BS to see the tour now, so I'll be sure to report. Now I just need to get the scoop on Richard Patrick (Filter) checking into rehab. Later, COZ