Peter Gabriel - Real World

 

 

I was 18 years old and was in either in high school or I had just graduated from high school when I first met Jeff in 1999. At the time I was working at a retail store in my hometown of Encinitas, California. Jeff was my manager.

When we first met each other we bonded right away on baseball and music. I mean come on. The guy is from Los Angeles so he's a Dodger fan. Boo!!! I’m a San Diego Padres fan so we always had a small friendly rivalry between the two of us. 

Even though Jeff is 20 years older than I am, we always had the same passion for music. Jeff grew up in the 60s and the 70s and was part of the British invasion of the Beatles. I on the other hand grew up in the 80s and the 90s and was a child of the MTV generation. 

One of he first bands that we talked about was Genesis. Jeff loved the progressive rock Peter Gabriel Genesis and I loved the more pop/rock Phil Collins version of Genesis of the 80s. The first conversation had about music was the difference between the Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins Genesis. 

The band Genesis is one of the greatest pop/rock stories in music history. Peter Gabriel was the original singer of the band through the 70s and had left to become a solo artist by the time the 80s rolled around. Phil Collins had taken over as the lead singer. 

When Peter Gabriel left the band, his career became much bigger as a solo artist, where Phil Collins took Genesis to extreme musical heights. 

Now I love 80s Genesis and I love 80s Phil Collins but and I never really cared for 70s Genesis, only because of the progressive rock was a little too progressive for my taste. That being said, I absolutely love Peter Gabriel as a solo artist right behind Michael Jackson. 

Jeff and I worked together for about a year and we stayed in contact for probably a year or so after he quit, but we always seemed to wanna talk about the differences between Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins and we always thought it would be cool to see a Peter Gabriel concert together.

Jeff had never seen Peter Gabriel before and I actually saw him on his “Growing Up” tour in 2001, but by that time I had lost contact with Jeff. Fast forward ten years and I found Jeff on Facebook and we were able to rekindle our friendship. Our conversations went right back to where they were when we first met, baseball and music. 

We continued to discuss the differences with Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins and still discussed how awesome it would be to see Peter Gabriel live in concert together.

In 2023 Peter Gabriel released his first solo album in 20 years and followed that up with a world tour. I live in Taiwan and Jeff lives in San Diego and he was able to get tickets to see Peter Gabriel live in concert in Los Angeles on his io tour at the forum in Inglewood.

Something that Jeff and I have talked about for over 20 years was finally going to happen. I hopped on a plane to California, once I got there, we drove to LA and the concert finally happened after all these years. Peter Gabriel live. It was spectacular!

When Peter Gabriel performs live, it's not a general concert experience one would imagine. Seeing Peter Gabriel live, is like going to a Broadway show and an art gallery and putting them together in a blender on high speed. That's Peter Gabriel.

My Peter Gabriel playlists are broken up into two parts. 

The first part “Real World” is at the root of why I love Peter Gabriel. He is a world artist. He incorporates musical acts from all around the world into his music. Most of his lesser known music involves world acts. 

YouTube Playlist - Peter Gabriel - Real World 

Spotify - Peter Gabriel - Real World

The second part, “Dark Side” is a collection of his lesser known tracks that are some of my favorite songs. Most of my favorite Peter Gabriel songs, other than “Sledgehammer" are ones that are lesser known to the general public, that only true fans know about.

YouTube Playlist - Peter Gabriel - Dark Side

Spotify - Peter Gabriel - Dark Side 

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