Back to Front was a concert tour by Peter Gabriel, a retrospective performance based on every song from his 1986 multi-platinum album So played in sequence. The backing band included musicians that Gabriel toured with in 1986–87 in support of the album's initial release.
Each night of the tour was recorded and released both separately and as part of a box set entitled Back to Front: Encore Series. The releases were limited editions and available exclusively from Gabriel's official website.
On 23 June 2014, Real World Records and Eagle Rock Entertainment released the live album and film Back to Front: Live in London, recorded at the O2 concerts.
Background In 2012, Gabriel released a 25th anniversary box set of So. To coincide with this release, Gabriel decided to assemble his band from the album's accompanying tour, with David Rhodes on guitar, Tony Levin on bass, Manu Katché on drums, and David Sancious on keyboards. Youssou N'Dour, who had opened for Gabriel for his 1986-1987 tour, was unavailable to participate on the Back to Front tour as he was serving as Minister of Culture and Tourism in Senegal at the time. Gabriel was initially reluctant to play So in its entirety, but reconsidered after he witnessed Brian Wilson perform Pet Sounds from start to finish.
During the tour, Gabriel also played some new original songs, including "O But" and "What Lies Ahead". Gabriel explained that he wanted to divide the tour into three different sections. The first part of the show was an acoustic set that began with an unfinished song with the houselights on. "O But" opened the set, which was later retitled "Daddy Long Legs". The song featured Levin on upright bass and piano playing from Gabriel, who sang his vocals in gibberish. "O But" and "Daddy Long Legs" were later reworked into "Playing for Time", which appeared on Gabriel's I/O album in 2023.
The second portion of the set, which Gabriel called "the main course", included more electronic and experimental songs and the final portion of the set (labelled by Gabriel as the "dessert") was the entirety of So with the running order that he originally intended. Gabriel explained that he placed "In Your Eyes" as the final song of the main set because he originally intended for it to be the last track on So. He was unable to do so for the 1986 release of So because the vinyl format was unable to accommodate the song's lower frequencies in the bassline.
John Cusack appeared at the 6 October 2012 concert in Los Angeles, recreating a scene from Say Anything... (1989).
Production Ben Findlay served as the front of house audio engineer for The Back of Front Tour, having previously worked with Gabriel at Real World Studios. The sound system used on the tour was a 96-input Avid Profile D-Show console, with the device's native EQ features being used on the drums. Findlay grouped these drum channels together, which he saved as a snapshot to correspond with each song. A Bricasti M1 was the primary outboard gear reverb effect used on the vocals and a Quantec Yardstick was relied on for long reverb decays. With the exception of Sancious, who used floor monitors developed by Firehouse Productions, all of the members used Sennheiser 2000 IEM systems. During later legs of the tour, including the European leg, a Solid State Logic live console was used instead, which was the company's first console made for live performances. The device possessed 64-bit internal processing and 96 kHz sample rate, which Findley felt was sufficient in preventing the issue of oversampling.
Some of the sounds used on the tour were accessed from floppy discs. Gabriel encountered some difficulties in locating DAT players and some of the old floppy discs were not longer functioning. For the illumination, Gabriel referred back to an idea he had 25 years earlier about manually operating lights on a boom intended for a camera. He reused this idea for the Back to Front Tour with a couple of overhead lights, but discarded the proscenium arch that had been present on his 1986-1987 tour.
Reception Dave McKenna of The Washington Post described the 14 October 2012 concert in Fairfax as "great". He highlighted the "goofy line routines" performed by Gabriel, Tony Levin, and David Rhodes on "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time" and said that Gabriel "choked up" when introducing "Biko".
Personnel Musicians Peter Gabriel – vocals, piano, keyboard, tambourine David Rhodes – guitar and backing vocals Tony Levin – bass guitar, upright bass, synthesizer, backing vocals David Sancious – keyboards, accordion, acoustic guitar Manu Katché – drums, shaker Jennie Abrahamson – backing vocals, tambourine, 12 string acoustic guitar Linnea Olsson – backing vocals, synthesizer, cello
Tour crew Tour manager: Dave Taraskevics Lighting designer: Rob Sinclair Front of house audio engineer: Ben Findlay
Set list Acoustic (with house lights left on): "Daddy Long Legs" (new unfinished song, also known as "O But", released as Playing For Time on i/o in 2023 with a full band and orchestral arrangement. Replaced by new unfinished song "What Lies Ahead" in late 2014, released on o\i in 2026 with orchestra and male voice choir) "Come Talk to Me" "Shock the Monkey" "Family Snapshot"
Electric: "Digging in the Dirt" "Secret World" "The Family and the Fishing Net" or "Darkness" (December 2014) "No Self Control" "Games Without Frontiers" (in Herning and Amsterdam only) "Solsbury Hill" (played after "Washing of the Water" for first show in Quebec City) "Washing of the Water" or "Humdrum" (2012 tour), "Why Don't You Show Yourself" (2013 and 2014 tours)
So: "Red Rain" "Sledgehammer" "Don't Give Up" "That Voice Again" "Mercy Street" "Big Time" "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)" "In Your Eyes"
Encore: "Here Comes the Flood" (played 11 times in mid 2014) "The Tower That Ate People" "Biko"
Tour dates + List of 2012 concertsDateCityCountryVenueAttendanceRevenue16 September 2012Quebec CityCanadaColisée Pepsi 8,652 / 10,006 $914,35218 September 2012MontrealBell Centre 11,902 / 11,902 $1,277,41519 September 2012TorontoAir Canada Centre 11,267 / 12,159 $1,098,89921 September 2012PhiladelphiaUnited StatesWells Fargo Center 11,773 / 12,809 $1,111,65123 September 2012WantaghJones Beach Theater 10,602 / 13,995 $991,03524 September 2012BostonTD Garden 5,671 / 9,215 $519,41326 September 2012Auburn HillsThe Palace of Auburn Hills — —27 September 2012ChicagoUnited Center 9,886 / 10,863 $967,50430 September 2012MorrisonRed Rocks Amphitheatre 8,631 / 8,631 $787,0672 October 2012San JoseHP Pavilion at San Jose 6,964 / 7,500 $710,3885 October 2012Las VegasPH Live Showroom — —6 October 2012Los AngelesHollywood Bowl 15,482 / 17,416 $1,527,2908 October 2012San DiegoValley View Casino Center — —9 October 2012Santa BarbaraSanta Barbara Bowl 3,972 / 4,549 $432,18213 October 2012UncasvilleMohegan Sun Arena 4,150 / 4,497 $379,490 14 October 2012FairfaxPatriot Center 5,812 / 5,812 $546,621
+ List of 2013 concertsDateCityCountryVenueAttendanceRevenue28 September 2013HerningDenmarkJyske Bank Arena 6,500 —30 September 2013AmsterdamNetherlandsZiggo Dome — —1 October 2013BrusselsBelgiumForest National 8,000 —3 October 2013ViennaAustriaWiener Stadthalle 10,000 —5 October 2013BelgradeSerbiaKombank Arena — —7 October 2013MilanItalyMediolanum Forum 11,000 —8 October 2013GenevaSwitzerlandGeneva Arena 8,000 —10 October 2013PragueCzech RepublicO2 Arena 12,000 —11 October 2013LeipzigGermanyArena Leipzig 10,000 —13 October 2013StuttgartSchleyerhalle 12,000 —15 October 2013ParisFrancePalais Omnisports de Bercy 16,000 —16 October 2013DüsseldorfGermanyISS Dome 10,000 —18 October 2013HamburgO2 World Hamburg 12,035 / 12,730 $876,61119 October 2013BerlinO2 World Berlin 13,468 / 13,468 $1,060,45021 October 2013LondonEnglandThe O2 Arena22,584 / 27,739$1,762,78022 October 201324 October 2013GlasgowScotlandSSE Hydro — —25 October 2013ManchesterEnglandPhones 4u Arena 14,057 / 15,105 $913,023
+ List of 2014 concertsDateCityCountryVenueAttendanceRevenue29 April 2014FrankfurtGermanyFesthalle Frankfurt 11,000 —30 April 2014MunichOlympiahalle 11,000 —2 May 2014CologneLanxess Arena 15,000 —3 May 2014HanoverTUI Arena 12,500 —5 May 2014BratislavaSlovakiaSlovnaft Arena — —6 May 2014BudapestHungaryBudapest Sports Arena — —8 May 2014BucharestRomaniaRomexpo Pavilionul Central — —12 May 2014ŁódźPolandAtlas Arena 13,000 —13 May 2014OstravaCzech RepublicČEZ Aréna — —16 May 2014VilniusLithuaniaSiemens Arena — —17 May 2014RigaLatviaArena Riga — —20 May 2014HelsinkiFinlandHartwall Arena — —22 May 2014StockholmSwedenEricsson Globe 10,950 —23 May 2014OsloNorwayOslo Spektrum 7,000 —25 May 2014BerlinGermanyWaldbühne 20,000 —12 November 2014BrusselsBelgiumPalais 12 9,000 —13 November 2014StrasbourgFranceZénith de Strasbourg 8,000 —15 November 2014NantesZénith de Nantes Métropole 8,000 —16 November 2014ToulouseZénith de Toulouse 8,000 —18 November 2014ZürichSwitzerlandHallenstadion 7,212 / 13,000 $597,34620 November 2014TurinItalyPala Alpitour — —21 November 2014BolognaUnipol Arena — —23 November 2014GrazAustriaStadthalle Graz 4,000 —24 November 2014SalzburgSalzburgarena — —28 November 2014BirminghamEnglandLG Arena — —30 November 2014SheffieldMotorpoint Arena Sheffield — —1 December 2014CardiffWalesMotorpoint Arena Cardiff — —3 December 2014LondonEnglandSSE Wembley Arena — —4 December 2014NewcastleMetro Radio Arena7 December 2014LiverpoolEcho Arena Liverpool — —8 December 2014AberdeenScotlandAECC Arena 4,600 —10 December 2014DublinIreland3Arena — —
Cancellations and rescheduled shows Zagreb, CroatiaArena ZagrebVenue changed to Kombank Arena, Belgrade, SerbiaKyiv, UkrainePalace of SportsCanceledLyon, FranceHalle Tony GarnierCanceled
References
External links
Tour and rehearsal photos from Tony Levin