Peter Gabriel has spent a very long time look back, most recently working on a deluxe reissue of his career-making triumph So and then on a retrospective tour that has criss crossed the globe ever since. On the latest leg, he’s finally peered into the future — in the form of a new song called “What Lies Ahead.”
Performed in the above video at Torino, with only stalwart bassist Tony Levin beside him at first, Gabriel begins a elegiac narrative journey before giving way to a delicately emotional cello. He then returns to the lyric, offered with a quiet darkness, offering a message of acceptance in times of turbulence.
“What Lies Ahead” opened the concert’s acoustic set — followed by a trio of more familiar cuts from the Peter Gabriel canon (“Come Talk To Me,” “Shock The Monkey” and then “Family Snapshot”) — for the first time in Torino on Thursday, November 20, 2014. It held the same spot one night later on Friday at Bologna.
Prior to his look back at So, Peter Gabriel participated in the Scratch My Back cover projects, and then in an orchestral reworking of his own music called New Blood. His most recent full-length album of new songs was 2002’s Up. Gabriel has said he plans to take a sabbatical from music all together after this portion of the Back to Front tour concludes.
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