Gary Steel
Thirty-one years ago, GARY STEEL spoke to bassist extraordinaire Tony Levin who was about to perform in NZ with his good mate Peter Gabriel.
Original intro: Peter Gabriel’s Secret World Tour is shaping up to be one of the most visually exciting stage shows, perhaps without precedent, in the history of touring rock. Gary Steel talks exclusively to Gabriel’s super-session bass guitarist Tony Levin on the eve of the group’s gig here on Friday.
Gruesome close-ups of tongue, teeth and fillings. The smallest video recorder in the world, probing the outer and inner contours of Peter Gabriel’s face. In real time, to an audience of thousands.
Just one of the many appetising, technological treats in store at Gabriel’s Mt Smart concert on Friday, one stop on the Secret World Tour, which set out a year ago. Mission: Show U2 how to do it right.
Gabriel admits to having seen the U2 show no less than five times. But his first tour since his hit album So in 1986 is a good deal more cosmic than the almost comedic U2 extravaganza.
Instead, Gabriel has built a multimedia show – exploiting the cutting edge of technology and a very theatrical bent – around the extremely personal songs of his latest album, Us. That album chronicled the minutiae of a failed relationship, seemingly fuelled by Gabriel’s bitter breakup with actress Rosanna Arquette.
But it’s an expensive form of therapy for Gabriel: the tour through Europe and North America cost more than $18 million, exceeding the budgeted $9 million. That might help to explain why the Australasian/Far East leg of the tour is scaled down, although Gabriel’s celebrated super-session bass guitarist Tony Levin says the show is still mighty impressive.
“It’s a very visual show and it revolves around Peter and the lighting and the special effects,” says Levin.
The rest of the tour was on a complex double-stage system, but reducing it to a single stage for Down Under reduces the impact.
“Musically, we’ve done this thing 120 times already, so we’re used to each other,” says Levin. “Peter’s shows are different from most people’s because he has such unusual ideas about production and what he’d like to do. They’re not rigid ideas, but we work within those parameters.
“For instance, in one part Peter goes skipping and jumping along a runway, and (guitarist) David Rhodes and I will have the choice if we want to follow him and skip and jump on our own, or not.”
Well, yes, Tony. But why couldn’t we get the fully-fledged international version in the Antipodes?
“I think it’s just how much staging they could fly with. We can’t move our staging across Australia the way we can across adjacent cities in Europe. If we were going to live here for a year… but we’re just doing five shows around Australia and New Zealand.”
Whether or not the spectacle is up to scratch – and Gabriel has a reputation for throwing money around even when he’s losing on the deal – the show should be worth seeing for the stellar cast of super musos and world music stars.
There’s long-time Gabriel guitarist David Rhodes (ex-Robert Palmer band), extraordinary French-African percussionist Manu Katche, newcomer Jean Claude Naimro (keyboards) and the odd surprise guest is promised.
And then there’s Tony Levin, whose musical chops have graced albums by a bizarre cast of freaks, from rock gods to total losers. Just a brief sampling including names like Tom Waits, Stevie Nicks, Peter Frampton, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Lou Reed, Cher and Karen Carpenter.
Karen Carpenter? “It was just an album, produced by Phil Ramone, very organised. We did it in a sensible way, it didn’t take long, and she was very nice.” End of subject.
Levin admits he’s not proud of some of his musical slumming.
“I’ve done some that were embarrassingly not good,” he says. “I’m not especially proud of that, but I’m also not embarrassed. When I don’t need the money, I don’t do them.”
Apart from being Gabriel’s close friend and longest-serving player, Levin gets his creative kicks from participating in the on-again-off-again musical weight-lifting competition that is King Crimson.
The original art-rock aggregation has reformed, and that project will be taking up all of Levin’s time once this long crawl across the world with Gabriel is over.
“King Crimson is the most free-ranging and creative expression that I could have,” says Levin.
His other great creative expression is with Gabriel.
“He lets us be individuals, and musically we are pretty much allowed to do what we want. We’re all good friends. Manu Katche is a lot of fun because he’ll change the drum part every night. It’s as interesting as it can be when you play the same show over and over again for a year!”
As for Levin, he’s eager to visit Auckland for the first time in 20 years. “I toured Australia with (jazz artist) Herbie Mann in the early ‘70s. The rest of the band stopped in Bora Bora, and for some reason, I chose Auckland. It seemed like a more interesting place to be. I’m interested to see if it’s changed!”
But Levin won’t get to honour a request from his father to check out the family’s namesake town, Levin.
“My Dad asked me to try and find the place called Levin and bring back a souvenir, but I found it on a map and it’s nowhere near Auckland. So sorry, Dad!”
+ This story originally appeared in the Sunday Star, February 27, 1994. One of these days I’ll dig up the full transcript, which should be a lot more interesting. I must confess I was much more interested in getting the goss on the reformed King Crimson than on Gabriel, who I respect but find a tad boring. In fact, I can’t even remember whether I went to the show!
