PG’s first live album – released 40 years ago this week – touched down incongruously during 1983’s Summer of Fun, crashing into the UK chart at #9 alongside Let’s Dance and Thriller (but Japan’s posthumous live album Oil On Canvas did even better – it was the week’s highest new entry at #5).
Plays Live was ostensibly recorded during four dates of the American tour in December 1982. Gabriel had taken some choreography lessons and often ventured into the audience for ‘Lay Your Hands On Me’, sometimes ‘falling backwards’ from the stage in the manner of those corporate team-building/trust exercises.
But he was very transparent about there being a lot of ‘cheating’ on this album – many overdubs/vocal corrections were undertaken with the assistance of co-producer Peter Walsh (fresh from Simple Minds’ New Gold Dream) at Gabriel’s Ashcombe House studios near Bath.
Plays Live hangs together very well – it’s immaculately sequenced and you certainly get your money’s worth, clocking in at a shade under 90 minutes. The tracks taken from Peter Gabriel IV AKA Security are a huge improvement on the studio versions. ‘Humdrum’, ‘Not One Of Us’, ‘No Self Control’ and ‘DIY’ are similarly transformed to become radical, vital updates.
There’s even an excellent Melt outtake called ‘I Go Swimming’. And when the band are freed from the sequencers and drum machines, they really sound like a band – check out the ‘floating’ tempos of ‘Humdrum’ and a few other tracks.
Jerry Marotta’s huge drum sound and (quite advanced) used of drum machines were not everyone’s cup of tea – Bill Bruford was still kvetching about it to Modern Drummer magazine during a 1989 interview. Both Marotta and synthesist Larry Fast, a key collaborator, were given the boot by Gabriel at the end of 1983, to much consternation.
My entrée into Plays Live was the (remixed) single release of ‘I Don’t Remember’ courtesy of its video being shown on ‘The Max Headroom Show’ in 1985. Marcello Anciano’s disturbing clip featured nude dancers from the Rational Theatre Company and some figures inspired by the artist/sculptor Malcolm Poynter. It’s hardly surprising that it missed the top 40…
movingtheriver.com 
I’ve never heard this, but you make it sound enticing.
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Give it a whirl, there’s some great stuff. The ‘Security’ material is massively improved.
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I have been a Genesis/Gabriel fan since I got into popular music – my first ever album purchase was Genesis’ Wind & Wythering in 1978, at the age of 11. This was prompted by a friend tagging on the first three tracks from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway album on to a tape of the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls. Even coming out of a mono JVC tape recorder, my only playback device at the time, Gabriel’s voice immediately transfixed me, and I was hooked. The Stones album hardly got played, but I wore out the end of the tape with those three tunes on.
Wind it forward to June 1983 and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Plays Live. And yes, despite the talk of overdubs, I was overjoyed at what I was hearing. The songs had such life to them, everyone was on point, and Gabriel’s voice sounded even more spine tingling and characterful than on record. Rhythm of the Heat is the standout track, on both this and the Security album. The sense of drama, and both claustrophobia and then space, just really draws you in, and that last ‘The rhythm has my soooooooooo-oooullll’ he cries before the drummers crash in, and the whole thing gathers frenetic pace before an excitingly abrupt ending, is one of the highlights of his performances of the period. And for me and my Gabriel obsessed friends, I Go Swimming was such a welcome inclusion, a precursor to danceable tracks like Sledgehammer, Steam and Kiss That Frog on So and Us.
A month later I was at Selhurst Park enjoying a marvellous day of fun (I’m a Crystal Palace fan, so I was doubly pumped – I got to go on the pitch for the first time!). The set was very similar, though I Go Swimming was swapped out as the tune you could boogie to for Kiss of Life, and Rhythm sadly wasn’t included, even though Gasper Lawal’s Africa Oro Band was supporting that day (as were the Thompson Twins, who tbh weren’t that well received overall), and could maybe have taken the place of the Ekome Dance Company drummers. But what a great day, especially as we had the bonus of a compromised Jerry Marotta (he’d injured his back) being augmented by ‘an old friend’, i.e. Phil Collins, on three tracks.
And to cap-off a great year, he toured Security in the UK in September and I caught an amazing show at Hammersmith Odeon (I was 16, so funds were tight. These days I’d have got a ticket for all three shows).
Plays Live for me perfectly encapsulates that period, a real formative one for me in launching my gig-going career. Thanks for posting!
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Interesting history for you re. this album and seeing PG live. Sad to report, inexplicably this has been one of the least popular posts ever on movingtheriver!
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Maybe the real fans are still smarting from £150 & £200 for a decent ticket at the current arena shows (though I loved the London O2 show I went to on Monday last).
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Could be. I’m one of those annoying people who think PG stopped being an essential live force sometime around 1983… It doesn’t help that So was the last album of which I was halfway fond. Melt is an absolute desert-island disc though.
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It neatly sums up the early (and best) part of Gabriel’s solo career. Those first four albums were just great. I lost interest after that. Didn’t like So very much and everything after that I’ve found a bit unexciting.
A gatefold would have been nice rather than the flimsy single sleeve.
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I agree. 1977-1980 was full of good music, I’ve struggled with everything since. Even ‘So’ flatters to deceive these days. Disappointing that ‘Plays Live’ isn’t well packaged (and extremely expensive!). Fortunately the sound quality on streaming platforms seems tip-top though so I’m not too bothered.
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