Peter Gabriel - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Reading Festival, Little John's Farm, Reading, Britain, 8-26-1979

Some weeks ago, I posted a poll asking which musical acts you'd like me to post BBC albums from. (Two polls, actually, but I'm going with the second, bigger poll.) I got sidetracks in recent weeks with posting lots of "PBS Soundstage" concerts I newly discovered, and I'm still kind of focused on that. But I'm going to finally start posting BBC albums from the most popular artists in that poll. I'm starting with Peter Gabriel, who got the most votes. I've found five BBC concerts from him. Here's the first one, from 1979.

The annual Reading Festival started in the early 1970s and is still a big festival as I write this in 2025. The 1979 festival lasted three days and had lots of big names, such as the Police, Motorhead, Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, Whitesnake, the Climax Blues Band, and the Ramones. Peter Gabriel was the headliner for the third and final night. 

We're lucky that the BBC broadcast this, because while it has often broadcast parts of the Reading Festival in recent decades, it rarely did so back in the 1970s. In this case, it broadcast more of Gabriel's set, but not all of it. Specifically, the last two songs, "Here Comes the Flood" and "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," were not included in the broadcast. However, a decent audience bootleg exists for those two songs, so I've used those.

Even though most of this is from a BBC broadcast, the recording was a little rough compared to usual BBC standards. Perhaps they weren't accustomed to recording at really big outdoor festivals. Whatever the case may be, I did a couple of my usual tricks to try to improve the sound. First, I noticed that the lead vocals were somewhat low in the mix compared to the instruments. So I fixed that with the use of the UVR5 audio editing program. Then I noticed the audience noise was rather loud during some (but not all) of the songs, especially the last two from the audience boot. I got rid of most of the cheering where it wasn't needed with the use of the MVSEP program.

Gabriel's first four solo albums were all named "Peter Gabriel." This concert took place after the release of the second one, often known as "Peter Gabriel 2" or "Scratch," released in 1978. However, interestingly, the first song performed, "Biko," was unreleased at the time. It would appear on his next album in 1980. This was only the second time he performed it in public, with the first being a warm-up concert a couple of days earlier.

I find it interesting that Phil Collins played drums on at least a couple of songs. I only know for sure he played on "Mother of Violence" and "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," but it's possible he played on more. You can hear Gabriel introduce him in the band intros right after "Mother of Violence." Of course, as any Genesis fan knows, Gabriel was the lead vocalist for Genesis until he left for a solo career in 1975. Collins had been the band's drummer from early in the band's career, but took over as lead vocalist and became a big star. But Gabriel and Collins actually have remained good friends and sometimes played on the other's albums.

This album is an hour and 14 minutes long.

01 Biko (Peter Gabriel)
02 On the Air (Peter Gabriel)
03 D.I.Y. (Peter Gabriel)
04 talk (Peter Gabriel)
05 Humdrum (Peter Gabriel)
06 No Self Control (Peter Gabriel)
07 White Shadow (Peter Gabriel)
08 Mother of Violence (Peter Gabriel)
09 talk (Peter Gabriel)
10 Animal Magic (Peter Gabriel)
11 I Don't Remember (Peter Gabriel)
12 Modern Love (Peter Gabriel)
13 Moribund the Burgermeister (Peter Gabriel)
14 Perspective (Peter Gabriel)
15 Solsbury Hill (Peter Gabriel)
16 Here Comes the Flood (Peter Gabriel)
17 The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Peter Gabriel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PkAQoovW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HsqtxLCUPOGeUZO/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.