Thread: Solsbury Hill

Such a brilliant musician, one of my favourites. I've seen him live twice: first time, on the legendary Secret World tour in 1993; and second time, ten years later I saw the tour from which this clip was taken.

The version of "Here Comes The Flood" he started the concert with was so great, that I had it transcribed and performed it at an outdoors concert in southern Spain in 2005. Beautiful song!



I wish I had the recording of my version, actually...

I told my wife that I'd do anything to be a part of Peter Gabriel's show. He always works with loads of musicians from other genres, but I've never seen him work with a classically trained opera singer. WHY NOT???

Speaking of incredible artists, one of my more recent discoveries is Tommy Emmanuel. The musicianship and musicality of this man is immense. But above all, his spiritual spark is a true blessing for us all. I cry with sheer joy whenever I hear this man play.

I like Peter Gabriel as well but I purchased Growing Up - Live DVD and was incredibly disappointed. I know he's a showman but it was reaching into the land of corny. And not kitsch enough to be enjoyable either. Just plain old kitsch.

Yeah, maybe so, bigdin. I saw both concerts live and I must say I enjoyed the Secret World tour much more. Everything with that tour was bordering on magical. With the Growing Up tour I had the feeling he was trying to top Secret World, which is near-impossible to do, even for him. Still, great musicians and great songs—these are my main interests. But my biggest Peter Gabriel disappointment (appart from his politics, but that's irrelevant here) was his latest release, the acoustic cover album without drums. This effort strikes me as just plain boring: there's no spark, no fire. He's trying to be more "mature", as if he had a vain ambition to become a classical music performer, only with inferior material. It's very pretentious and way below his abilities. He seems to not know his own limitations. I saw a clip from a live concert with material from this album and if anything's kitsch, this is it. I've done a few of those kinds of concerts myself, so I know how bad they can be. What is it with rock and pop musicians, that they think adding string arrangments and symphony orchestras to three-chord tunes will somehow upgrade them to a higher artistic status than their commercial one? It's just presenting a hamburger as if it was a haute cuisine meal. I like hamburgers in context but when I book a table at a three-star restaurant I expect more than just a repackaged hamburger.

That whole "cross-over" marketing idea is a really bad one.

Couldn't agree with you more about that cover album. I was excited about it when i first heard he was working on it thinking, being that he's Peter *ucking Gabriel, he'd really turn these songs on their head and have some fun with it. Complete opposite. In fact he took good songs, some great songs even, and made the mediocre slop.

The whole strings thing, God do I ever hear you. What redundant garbage it is.

Huge Peter Gabriel fan, but I totally agree about the cover album.

Getting back to Tommy Emmanuel, I'll see him live the 1st of December!! I'm really, REALLY looking forward to that. Not many musicians or performers have had the effect on me that he has. And lately I've become quite pessimistic about the future of musical expression as a way of communicating higher ideals and metaphysical realities. With that in mind, who would have thought that a single person playing "redneck" music on an acoustic guitar would inspire a classically trained singer like me? For me, the two people who have literally brought me to tears of joy are Eva Cassidy and Tommy Emmanuel. Just the sound of Cassidy's voice touches on that certain spot in my psyche, which Emmanuel reaches by the sound of his guitar. And don't think for a second that what I'm referring to is identical to the reaction any reasonably well-crafted Hollywood B-movie is capable to provoke, because it is not. There's a mountain of difference between being moved to tears by having seen Casablanca and being moved to tears by having seen a traditional-conventional performance of Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare.

In any case, a few weeks ago I saw John Scofield play with Bill Stewart and Steve Swallow and frankly it was a slight disappointment. You cannot take away their total virtuosity and musicianship, but in the end I was simply not moved. When compared to performances I remember this one will fade very quickly. As a contrast in July 1995 at Umbria Jazz Festival I saw John McLaughlin play with Joey DeFrancesco and Dennis Chambers, and, the same night, Joe Zawinul with his Syndicate. And after having played their respective sets—they jammed. Together. Now, such experiences border on the sacred!! Nowadays, jazz festivals book anyone but jazz musicians. As much as I enjoy Jamiroquai I really don't think they qualify as jazz, not even fusion. These days things are being deliberately confused on sooo many levels...

Tommy Emmanuel is awesome and a very interesting entertainer. I am sure you will enjoy the show.