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…