^the very first live musical theatre and performance art show I saw in my life was Gabriel's ill-fated OVO at the now-defunct Millennium Dome (the only good bit about that project). Altered me on a profound level, that did, not just creatively and musically but also sociopolitically. Due to that, I can't speak poorly about Gabriel.
It was essentially just a Cirque du Soleil eco-warrior NuLabour prog manifesto x lightshow & aerial ballet for kids, which cost ridiculous amounts of looted taxpayer money to stage for a whole year, and was partially funded by BAE Systems (arms/weapons company). But I could only have been six years old when I went to see it, so I didn't know about all that and wasn't thinking in such critical negative terms, just awed by the sound and the spectacle of something conceptual and multi-disciplinary that wasn't talking to down to my child mind.
Liz Fraser, Neneh Cherry and the lad who does the vocals for The Blue Nile (superlative band) sang for the original cast recording, which is a bonus. Peter cast himself as the voice of the industrialist villain, and says he wrote the touching central ballad about a time he went on a yoga retreat with his irl dad.
Which makes the theory that this show was some sort of preparatory ritual for WTC even more ludicrous--Gabriel is an avowed pacifist granola grandad who's highly sceptical of media, government and military, why would he agree to that?
It was essentially just a Cirque du Soleil eco-warrior NuLabour prog manifesto x lightshow & aerial ballet for kids, which cost ridiculous amounts of looted taxpayer money to stage for a whole year, and was partially funded by BAE Systems (arms/weapons company). But I could only have been six years old when I went to see it, so I didn't know about all that and wasn't thinking in such critical negative terms, just awed by the sound and the spectacle of something conceptual and multi-disciplinary that wasn't talking to down to my child mind.
Liz Fraser, Neneh Cherry and the lad who does the vocals for The Blue Nile (superlative band) sang for the original cast recording, which is a bonus. Peter cast himself as the voice of the industrialist villain, and says he wrote the touching central ballad about a time he went on a yoga retreat with his irl dad.
Which makes the theory that this show was some sort of preparatory ritual for WTC even more ludicrous--Gabriel is an avowed pacifist granola grandad who's highly sceptical of media, government and military, why would he agree to that?
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