The bizarre moment Peter Gabriel wasn’t allowed into his own concert
Every major rock and roll band usually has to deal with a handful of unruly spectators now and again. From hecklers to overeager fans, there are always those fans that must be dealt with in the crowd, lest they ruin the show for everyone involved. While Peter Gabriel may not have been known to have the same massive crowd reaction as a group like The Beatles, the name recognition wasn’t enough for him to get an out at his own show.
Then again, it would have been pretty easy not to recognise Gabriel offstage when performing in his main outfit with Genesis. Since the beginning of their career, Gabriel made it a habit of dressing up in whatever crazy costume he could think of to suit the music he was playing, starting with him donning a fox’s head when he began performing songs from the album Foxtrot.
By the time the band expanded their horizons, Gabriel had graduated to even more majestic outfits, having various clown makeup smeared across his face and dressing up like a living embodiment of a sexually transmitted disease. While he may have looked to push music forward throughout every performance, the tour cycle for The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was enough for him to reconsider his performance days.
Electing to spend more time with his family, Genesis would soldier on with Phil Collins on vocals, by which time Gabriel would begin work on his solo career. Even though Gabriel would return to the stage when he was ready, his live shows did not disappoint, showing him wearing equally baffling stage clothes while making amazing songs like ‘Solsbury Hill’ and ‘Shock the Monkey’.
For all of the great moments captured onstage, Gabriel remembered one embarrassing moment when trying to put on a show back in the 1970s. While everything was going off without a hitch backstage, Gabriel ran into trouble when reaching the stage, leading to him being face-to-face with a bouncer from his own show.
As Gabriel years later, he wasn’t allowed entrance into the building, saying, “I used to sing one song at the farthest seat from the stage. In some cases, this required me running around from the stage door to the front door to access the stairs. At one gig in Germany, the security guard refused to let me in: he could hear the band playing and thought I was trying to blag my way in.”
By the time Gabriel had reached the 1980s, his shows would quickly become too big for him to occupy any space in the crowd. After being on the fringes of the rock mainstream for years, the album So catapulted him into one of the most successful artists in his field, earning hits like ‘Sledgehammer’ and ‘Don’t Give Up’ without sacrificing any of his creative ingenuity in the process.
While Gabriel may be restricted to the stage show these days, he hasn’t stopped wanting to be involved in crowd engagement, founding the WOMAD organisation focused on bringing together through the power of music and dance. Gabriel may have had a few run-ins with his own staff along the way, but it was always in service to making the show a more engaging experience.
