Peter Gabriel

London Earls Court June 28, 1987

If drug addicts spend their whole lives chasing that first high, then I was a theatrical rock junkie from day one. Well, gig two to be honest. But Peter Gabriel’s So tour set so high a bar and loaded me so full of big-gig expectation that it took several years for me to get over the fact that most bands had the gall to just come on stage, pick up guitars and play songs.

On this night, the actual stage came alive – lighting cranes resembling gigantic android angle-poise lamps probed and observed Gabriel from above as he marched through Games Without Frontiers and gibboned through Shock The Monkey. Eventually, as No Self Control reached its maniacal chorus, they attacked, beating him down until he lay cocooned in foetal position for Mercy Street, the lights studying him like alien scientists.

The rest was sheer set-piece spectacle: the airpunching righteousness of Biko; the Afrobeat danceoff with Youssou N’Dour on In Your Eyes; the point during the dark, tribal Lay Your Hands On Me when Gabriel, in crucifix pose, fell backwards into waiting arms and was carried across the audience. And a real moment of legend – as Don’t Give Up reached its tremulous chorus, the spotlight fell on Kate Bush, making one of her precious few live appearances of the 80s for that night only, her voice entirely drowned out by the screaming audience. An unrepeatable rush.