Peter Gabriel/Crowded House, Marlay Park Dublin, Fri 22nd June 07

My summer season kicked off last Friday night, the first open air show of the year for me, attended in the estimable company of our friend from the north, Jason Quinn. Let me start with a tip, getting to Marlay park from the centre of Dublin is a pain in the arse, especially when you factor in that great annoyance, work. If you decide to go with the bus option any time after four, as I have done in past campaigns, then make sure you do not have a drink first as you risk bladder damage on a journey that can take as much as two hours to cover a few measly miles. A better option is to hop on the new fangled LUAS, head to Dundrum, stop in the Eagle for a few jars and then get a short taxi ride up to the gig. All sounds good so far, right? Wrong. One always dices with death going out the same weekend that Glastonbury (did you see the Who on the telly? Amazing) takes place, as it always, always rains. Rain however is too small a word for the deluge that fell on Dublin last Friday. We waited in the aforementioned Eagle as long as possible but wanted to see Crowded House so headed up around 7. Got absolutely soaked as the antipodeans played (see photo for evidence, look at the state of my barnet for the love of jaysus), and they even tried a weather joke before launching into "Weather With You", I felt this to be a mistake.

Crowded House delivered with the hits and some pleasant enough stuff from the forthcoming album. A Good show and I'm looking forward to seeing them indoors when they return here later in the year. Peter Gabriel was a different kettle of fish however. I spotted a tee shirt in the crowd before he came on which referred to this series of gigs as the rehearsal tour (or something similar), a bad sign for sure. I'd heard stories of his live gigs being great visual as well as musical experiences but this was not to be the case. Nothing apart from a few lights and then he announced that this was to be one for the serious fans and he'd be playing all the stuff he hadn't played the last time. The resulting show leads me to believe that he played almost every thing he's released that could be described as a hit the last time he hit Dublin. Now this is fair enough for some of the people in the audience who certainly seemed to enjoy it but I wouldn't be that serious a fan, although I love the 'Us" album and his great soundtrack to "The Last Temptation of Christ", so it was a let down for me although there was a fine version of "Blood Of Eden"

Oh, and he did play "Sledgehammer", of course.