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Peter Gabriel – Mercy Street (Lycabettus Theatre, Athens, October 5-6, 1987) I must confess that, as a rule, I am far more visually attracted to shows which place the music, and the musicianship at the center, rather than the actual «show» elements. «Rock theater» at its best can be quite entertaining and stimulating, but if it is a music show we’re talking about, it should never ever come at the expense of actual music. Sometimes clashes between the two are unavoidable even if the artist is smart enough to try and observe a proper balance — for instance, Alice Cooper, in his live shows, almost never forgets that a good sound, proper singing, and a strong musical backing is essential (he tends to always put his guitar players in the spotlight, for instance), yet most people still go to an Alice Cooper show to see the show, not so much a bunch of live musicians expressing their emotions. Were Alice Cooper to perform his show all to the sound of backing tapes, he’d still sell just as many (okay, almost as many) tickets as he usually does. Much to his honor, he does not... which still makes him «a showman with integrity» rather than a «musical genius» (which, to a certain degree, he just might be). That said, the main reason of this indifference, especially when it comes to the «artsier» side of the spectrum, is that I tend to be pretty indifferent to modern theatricality as a whole — much, if not most, of the time it just leaves me emotionally cold. I can always appreciate the creativity, I can soak in and analyze the symbolic value, but it’s just usually not something I can truly sense on a gut level, which has to be involved if we are really talking great art here. There are occasional exceptions to the rule — like, for instance, nearly the whole entirety of Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense performance — but they only serve to reiterate the idea of how goddamn difficult it is to make «modern art» which could literally shake you down, rather than just put in another checkmark on your «What Humanity Has Managed To Achieve So Far» list. Peter Gabriel, whether in his classic Genesis days or even as a solo artist, after he’d seriously toned down the theatrical aspects of his shows, typically offers a good example of what I’m talking about — the shows are entertaining, but too often detract from the music rather than add to it; not a tragedy, since the music can still be phenomenal, but just as Peter’s surrealistic videos had, at one point, almost led people to think more of him as a visual than a musical artist, so do his concerts often continue to be theatrical rather than musical events. Yet every once in a while, some miracle occurs in which the visuals and the music complement each other so perfectly that the sum ends up far greater than the individual parts. And it’s a double miracle if this combination suddenly feels more relevant to your own current life than it ever was before — and no, «relevant» is too dry a word here. Bone-chilling? Knife-sharp? Murderously painful? Let us talk about ‘Mercy Street’ and, specifically, the way it was performed on Peter Gabriel’s 1987 tour, as captured in the overall excellent Live In Athens concert movie — of which it is, beyond the slightest doubt, the absolute highlight. In my original, decades-old review of So, I wrote that ‘Mercy Street’ is “simply mood music... most of the time, it puts me to sleep“. Not a very brilliant or original or instructive evaluation, but, funny enough, probably true at the time, and even now, as I relisten to the original studio version, I can’t help yearning for a little more... intensity? There’s just a bit too much of that New Age spirit in the arrangement which always blocks me from falling under the spell of a track like this. Even if I knew all the details about the song at the time — its being inspired by the sad tale of Anne Sexton’s life and death — which I did not, that would hardly move me in the right direction, though I’d probably have tried to be more gallant about the wording. Nor, truth be told, am I a big fan of all the later reincarnations of that song on stage; for instance, this version, as performed on Peter’s Growing Up tour in 2002–2003, in all aspects stays rather faithful to the So vision of the song and, to me, feels at best «touching» rather than «shattering». Or this, even later, version, played with a full orchestra in 2012 — again, I appreciate the extra bells and whistles (almost literally), but, like a bunch of pretty ornaments on a Christmas tree, they do not turn the song into something completely different, they just give you a bunch of extra details to feast your eyes and ears on.
