Back to Front Tour

The Back to Front Tour

Tour by Peter Gabriel
Start date	9 September 2012
End date	10 December 2014
Legs	2
No. of shows	16 in North America 51 in Europe 67 in total
Peter Gabriel concert chronology
New Blood Tour (2010–12) The Back to Front Tour (2012–14) Rock Paper Scissors Tour (2016)

Back to Front was a concert tour by Peter Gabriel, a retrospective performance based on every song from his 1986 multi-platinum album So played in sequence.^[1] The backing band included musicians that Gabriel toured with in 1986–87 in support of the album's initial release.^[2]

Each night of the tour was recorded and released both separately and as part of a box set entitled Back to Front: Encore Series. The releases were limited editions and available exclusively from Gabriel's official website.^[3]

On 23 June 2014, Real World Records and Eagle Rock Entertainment released the live album and film Back to Front: Live in London, recorded at the O2 concerts.

In 2012, Gabriel released a 25th anniversary box set of So. To coincide with this release, Gabriel decided to assemble his band from the album's accompanying tour, with David Rhodes on guitar, Tony Levin on bass, Manu Katché on drums, and David Sancious on keyboards.^[2] Youssou N'Dour, who had opened for Gabriel for his 1986-1987 tour, was unavailable to participate on the Back to Front tour as he was serving as Minister of Culture and Tourism in Senegal at the time.^{[4]: 19:42–20:09} Gabriel was initially reluctant to play So in its entirety, but reconsidered after he witnessed Brian Wilson perform Pet Sounds from start to finish.^[2]

During the tour, Gabriel also played some new original songs, including "O But" and "What Lies Ahead".^[5] Gabriel explained that he wanted to divide the tour into three different sections, starting with an unfinished song with the houselights on.^{[4]: 2:00–2:22} "O But" opened the set, which was later retitled "Daddy Long Legs". The song featured Levin on upright bass and piano playing from Gabriel, who sang his vocals in gibberish. "O But" and "Daddy Long Legs" were later reworked into "Playing for Time", which appeared on Gabriel's I/O album in 2023.^[6]

The second portion of the set, which Gabriel called "the main course", included more electronic and experimental songs and the final portion of the set (labelled by Gabriel as the "dessert") was the entirety of So with the running order that he originally intended.^{[7][4]: 2:22–2:34} Gabriel explained that he placed "In Your Eyes" as the final song of the main set because he originally intended for it to be the last track on So. He was unable to do so for the 1986 release of So because the vinyl format was unable to accommodate the song's lower frequencies in the bassline.^{[4]: 2:46–3:48}

John Cusack appeared at the 6 October 2012 concert in Los Angeles, recreating a scene from Say Anything... (1989).^[8]

Ben Findlay served as the front of house audio engineer for The Back of Front Tour, having previously worked with Gabriel at Real World Studios. The sound system used on the tour was a 96-input Avid Profile D-Show console, with the device's native EQ features being used on the drums. Findlay grouped these drum channels together, which he saved as a snapshot to correspond with each song. A Bricasti M1 was the primary outboard gear reverb effect used on the vocals and a Quantec Yardstick was relied on for long reverb decays. With the exception of Sancious, who used floor monitors developed by Firehouse Productions, all of the members used Sennheiser 2000 IEM systems.^[9]

Some of the sounds used on the tour were accessed from floppy discs. Gabriel encountered some difficulties in locating DAT players and some of the old floppy discs were not longer functioning.^{[4]: 20:33–21:28} For the illumination, Gabriel referred back to an idea he had 25 years earlier about manually operating lights on a boom intended for a camera. He reused this idea for the Back to Front Tour with a couple of overhead lights, but discarded the proscenium arch that had been present on his 1986-1987 tour.^{[4]: 14:09–14:58, 19:24–19:33}

Dave McKenna of The Washington Post described the 14 October 2012 concert in Fairfax as "great". He highlighted the "goofy line routines" performed by Gabriel, Tony Levin, and David Rhodes on "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time" and said that Gabriel "choked up" when introducing "Biko".^[10]

• Peter Gabriel – vocals, piano, keyboard, tambourine
• David Rhodes – guitar and backing vocals
• Tony Levin – bass guitar, upright bass, synthesizer, backing vocals
• David Sancious – keyboards, accordion, acoustic guitar
• Manu Katché – drums, shaker
• Jennie Abrahamson – backing vocals, tambourine, 12 string acoustic guitar
• Linnea Olsson – backing vocals, synthesizer, cello

• Tour manager: Dave Taraskevics
• Lighting designer: Rob Sinclair
• Front of house audio engineer: Ben Findlay

Acoustic (with house lights left on):

1. "Daddy Long Legs" (new unfinished song, also known as "O But", released as Playing For Time on i/o in 2023 with a full band and orchestral arrangement. Replaced by new unfinished song "What Lies Ahead" in late 2014)
2. "Come Talk to Me"
3. "Shock the Monkey"
4. "Family Snapshot"

Electric:

1. "Digging in the Dirt"
2. "Secret World"
3. "The Family and the Fishing Net" or "Darkness" (December 2014)
4. "No Self Control"
5. "Games Without Frontiers" (in Herning and Amsterdam only)
6. "Solsbury Hill" (played after "Washing of the Water" for first show in Quebec City)
7. "Washing of the Water" or "Humdrum" (2012 tour), "Why Don't You Show Yourself" (2013 and 2014 tours)

So:

1. "Red Rain"
2. "Sledgehammer"
3. "Don't Give Up"
4. "That Voice Again"
5. "Mercy Street"
6. "Big Time"
7. "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)"
8. "This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds)"
9. "In Your Eyes"

Encore:

1. "Here Comes the Flood" (played 11 times in mid 2014)
2. "The Tower That Ate People"
3. "Biko"

Cancellations and rescheduled shows

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Back to Front Tour.

• Tour and rehearsal photos from Tony Levin