Plays Live - Highlights (Remastered)

This is the “edited” collection of Peter Gabriel’s two-LP/two-CD live album Plays Live; this was released in 1985 as a single CD of highlights. The full-length version is obviously preferable, but for those unbothered by the exclusion of “The Rhythm of the Heat,” “Not One of Us,” “Intruder," and “On the Air,” the performances that are here explain well enough what an incredible performer and live interpreter Gabriel and his all-star band were in December of 1982. It’s impossible for a band featuring Tony Levin on bass and a Chapman Stick, Jerry Marotta on drums, David Rhodes on guitar, and Larry Fast on keyboards to be anything less than terrific—even though the album’s original notes confess to post-production tinkering. “I Go Swimming” is the one previously unreleased song, with the remaining songs being among the most popular in Gabriel’s catalog—including “Shock the Monkey,” the Top 40 hit and No. 1 Mainstream Rock hit that enabled the easy release of a live album. For anyone who finds studio work too stiff, the humanity flowing here through “D.I.Y.,” “Solsbury Hill,” “I Don’t Remember," and “Biko” add tangible warmth.