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Peter Gabriel: New Blood Live in London is a fascinating look at the performer’s latest iteration. It works both as an audio/visual record of his latest tour and as a look at where he currently stands with his catalogue. In this concert, he’s working with a 46-piece orchestra, eschewing the rock instrumentation originally designed for his songs and carving out new territory far from the sampled and synthesized materials found on many of his records. I can’t say that every song benefits from this approach, but some certainly do. The 2D Blu-ray of this concert is a straightforward look at the concert without the 3D bells and whistles, and with one additional song included (“Washing of the Water”). For Peter Gabriel fans who have HDTVs but do not have 3D capability, this is an easy recommendation.
PETER GABRIEL
NEW BLOOD LIVE IN LONDON
Studio: Eagle Rock Entertainment/Kayos Productions
Release Year: 2011
Length: 2:21:15
Genre: Live Musical Performance/Orchestra
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
BD Resolution and Codec: 1080i, AVC(@ an average 24 mbps)
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (@ an average 2.4 mbps, up to 3.2 mbps), English Dolby Digital 5.1, English LPCM Stereo
Subtitles: (for the “Blood Donors” featurette only) English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese
Film Rating: NR (The concert is fairly straightforward, but there is some salty language in the “Blood Donors” featurette)
Release Date: October 24, 2011
Starring: Peter Gabriel, Melanie Gabriel, Ane Brun and the New Blood Orchestra
Songs by: Peter Gabriel (with the exception of four songs from the Scratch My Back cover album)
Directed by: Blue Leach
Concert Rating: 3 ½/5
I have to first confess being a longtime fan of Peter Gabriel, dating back to fall 1985, when I picked up his third and fourth albums from a record store (remember those?) and was mesmerized. So having the opportunity to review his latest concert, as released on Blu-ray, is a real pleasure. Peter Gabriel: New Blood Live in London is a high definition record of the performances given on March 23rd and 24th of this year at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo in London. It’s a fine way to see Peter Gabriel’s latest phase in presenting his work. From the wilder costume days of Genesis, through the sparer work of his first three solo albums, to the inclusion of world music in his next three albums, to the more dour approach of his last album of new material, 2002’s Up, Gabriel has always been one to try new things. (Of course, he also takes a heck of a long time to release a new album, which is eternally frustrating to his fans. His Big Blue Ball compilation/gathering took over 15 years to finally come out, by which time at least one of the songs had already popped up on one of his solo albums.)
In 2010, Gabriel released a special project entitled Scratch My Back, in which he performed covers of other artists’ works, only with new orchestral arrangements. Songs like Paul Simon’s “The Boy in the Bubble” and David Bowie’s “Heroes” were given completely different approaches – usually emphasizing the more somber elements of each song. (As a sidenote, Scratch My Back was intended to spawn a second album called …And I’ll Scratch Yours, where the covered artists would in turn record various pieces by Peter Gabriel. This effort unfortunately stopped at 6 of the 12 songs, and the return covers wound up being released only as B-sides to the appropriate songs.) Fresh from that effort and interested in the effect of orchestral arrangements on rock/pop songs, Gabriel then turned to his own catalogue. New Blood is the result. (It of course stands to reason that if one scratches one back, one probably would find new blood at some point…) This record, which has been released during the past month, includes fourteen of his songs, reinterpreted and presented with a 46-piece orchestra fronted by the vocals of Gabriel, his daughter Melanie, and Ane Brun. No rock instruments are used here – only the orchestra. So all the musical colorings must come from either the vocals (which are mostly subdued) or the orchestra itself, which is of course the entire point of the exercise. The New Blood Live Tour is a valedictory statement by Gabriel on the concept, allowing audiences to experience this idea in a live setting, and thus be reintroduced to many favorite songs in a new context.
Watching the new Blu-ray is the next best thing to going to the concert live, and one can easily see the ups and downs of the new approach. And in some of the songs, this approach works. “Wallflower” reveals many different shadings not found on the original recording on Security. “Washing of the Water”, always a simple song, benefits from orchestral backing. “Blood of Eden” similarly benefits from this approach. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always pan out. Some songs, like “Rhythm of the Heat” or “San Jacinto” were originally built from specific percussive rhythms, without which the songs feel like they’re lacking a central element. The opening song of the concert, “Intruder” was specifically built from a brutal 6 part drum pattern, and without it, the song loses most of its menace. Crucially, “Signal to Noise” was always an orchestral piece, but the original recording used the orchestra as but one element in a mix that included both percussive and electric elements that took it over the top. Relying only on the orchestral element removes a major part of the soaring climax of the song. That said, it’s still a fascinating exercise to watch in action. As the performance itself is relatively still (Gabriel and the other singers occasionally swing their arms during the upbeat numbers, but are usually stationary), the staging includes multimedia displays on large monitors that rise up and down at different times during the performance. There are also a few video effects that appear to be intended for the 3D cameras shooting the event (which would then play out on the 3D Blu-ray released at the same time as this 2D version). It’s all striking, classy, and an interesting way to hear (and sing along with) many favorite Peter Gabriel songs. If there is one personal note to confess, it’s that seeing Peter Gabriel at over the age of 60, much heavier and with a much smaller head of now-white hair is an initially shocking experience, and a reminder that none of us is getting any younger.
Peter Gabriel: New Blood Live in London has been released on Blu-ray as of October 24, in several versions. One of those is a 3D edition previously released on this site. The edition under review here is a 2D Blu-ray presentation, including one additional song (“Washing of the Water”) and a featurette on the concert and the 3D presentation. The concert itself is presented in a 1080i high definition transfer with three options for the audio. This review is a bit late to the party, so most Peter Gabriel fans likely have already picked this up in either the 2D or 3D version. On the other hand, we may catch some fans who hadn’t heard about the release – and at least the delay is nowhere near what we regularly wait for a new Peter Gabriel album…
One final note: This concert actually includes some songs not on the New Blood album – “Washing of the Water”, “The Drop”, and in a changed mode, “Biko”. On the other hand, two tracks from the album, "Father, Son" and “A Quiet Moment”, are not included in the concert. Only four tracks from Scratch My Back are included in the concert: “The Boy in the Bubble”, “Apres Moi”, “The Book of Love” and “The Power of the Heart”. "Signal to Noise" is presented with the orchestral arrangement originally used for Up, again without the other elements in the mix.
VIDEO QUALITY 4/5
Peter Gabriel: New Blood Live in London is presented in a 1.78:1 1080i AVC encode, which showcases in fine detail the inputs from the multiple cameras used for the shoot. Some of the cameras do better than others – there are some shots that have all kinds of digital issues, but these are specific to the camera and not the transfer. The primary cameras get really detailed images that could allow the viewer to count the beads of sweat on a singer, or count the little circles in the multimedia displays behind and above the orchestra. The occasional video effects, including animations streaming toward the camera, clearly intended for the 3D version, don’t fare as well here, but 2D was never the goal of such an effect in the first place.
AUDIO QUALITY 5/5
Peter Gabriel: New Blood Live in London is presented in three mixes. There’s a LPCM 2.0 mix, a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, and, easily the best of all, a DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix that will literally rock the house. The strange thing with the disc is that it defaults to the LPCM mix, which isn’t bad but is limited to the two channels. When I went into the menu and selected the DTS-HD MA mix, the home theater came to life with some authority. Bass is present in all sorts of surprising places, and the subwoofer is called on multiple times both for percussion and for bass violins. My 5/5 score is really aimed at the DTS-HD MA mix, but I concede that the other two mixes are good in their own way.
SPECIAL FEATURES 2/5
Peter Gabriel: New Blood Live in London really only comes with a single special feature. There is an 18 minute featurette called “Blood Donors” which covers both the concert and the shoot, and has some good interview material with Gabriel and his collaborators. The packaging includes a nice insert booklet, that like a good Peter Gabriel tour booklet, provides the credit list of all the musicians and technicians involved in the production.
Blood Donors (18:26, 1080i) – This featurette covers both the concert and the 3D shoot, including some new interview material with Peter Gabriel, his arrangers and conductors, and various members of the crew. There’s some fun material with the camera and stage crew, where the 3D work is discussed, and where the crew’s bright red outfits are acknowledged as part of the show. The best material, though, comes from Peter Gabriel, who acknowledges that people may be thinking that he’s turning to orchestra work because of his age. Gabriel then dismisses that notion, saying that he’s learned from the experience but will be going in a different direction with his next album. He closes the discussion by saying that he’ll be done with the orchestral work this year, meaning that this tour will finish the experiment. I should note that this featurette is the only place on the disc where the subtitles will work.
There are no subtitles for the concert, but the featurette is subtitled in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese. The usual pop-up menu is present, along with a complete chapter menu of all the songs in the concert.
IN THE END...
Peter Gabriel: New Blood Live in London is an easy Blu-ray set to recommend to fans of Peter Gabriel, and to fans of interesting orchestral work crossed with multimedia. One could even think of this experiment as a kind of performance art utilizing orchestra, camera work and collage. In its 2D version, this Blu-ray allows the viewer to focus on the performances and the textures throughout. Whether this project completely works is something to leave up to the viewer, but it’s a fascinating experience nonetheless.
Kevin Koster
November 11, 2011.
Equipment now in use in this Home Theater:
Panasonic 65” VT30 Plasma 3D HDTV – set at “THX” picture mode
Denon AVR-3311Cl Receiver
Oppo BDP-93 Blu-ray Player
PS3 Player (used for calculation of bitrates for picture and sound)
5 Mirage Speakers (Front Left/Center/Right, Surround Back Left/Right)
2 Sony Speakers (Surround Left/Right – middle of room)
Martin Logan Dynamo 700 Subwoofer
