In The Big Room

Peter Gabriel — 2026

“Intimate room, massive presence. Gabriel makes subtle and powerful feel inseparable.”

Peter Gabriel may be in the midst of a campaign for his forthcoming album o\i (the follow-up to 2023’s excellent i/o), but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time to look back to the past too. His new live album, In The Big Room, features a performance from November 23, 2003 recorded in the eponymous “big room” at Gabriel’s Real World Studios. An intimate performance for members of Gabriel’s “Full Moon” club, it features his touring band from the time playing a 14-song set that spans his career while leaning heavily on the recently released Up.

Gabriel’s touring band—Tony Levin (bass), David Rhodes (guitar), Ged Lynch (drums), Richard Evans (guitar, whistle, mandolin), Rachel Z (keyboard and backing vocals) and Melanie Gabriel (backing vocals)—keeps the arrangements lean and tight while not straying too far from the overall sound of the originals. Levin and Lynch easily pivot from funky grooves to robotic industrial rhythms and everything in between, while the other musicians fill out the sound in a way that feels spacious, organic, and carefully honed at the same time.

Gabriel has always been a musical chameleon, starting his career with Genesis in that band’s prog-rock heyday before moving on to various shades of art-pop, ambient, and world music. The sound on In The Big Room is closest to his 2002 album Up, a fan-favorite that marries Gabriel’s penchant for pop hooks to his wide array of musical influences.

It’s Peter Gabriel, so you may not need any dots to connect, but if you’re looking for a reference point, this sits comfortably alongside David Byrne’s groove driven art pop, Brian Eno’s atmospheric approach, and Kate Bush’s expressive songwriting. It’s the same mix of texture, rhythm, and control you would expect, especially from a seasoned live band locked in together.

Given they’re the work of a well-oiled touring band, the performances on In The Big Room are very consistent across the whole set. There are some standouts, though: opener “Burn You Up, Burn You Down” sets the mood with its snaky, funky groove, while the tender “Downside Up” slows things down for a duet with daughter Melanie Gabriel. Tracks from earlier albums are also fun to hear in this context, particularly “Games Without Frontiers” (from Peter Gabriel 3/Melt), “Shock The Monkey” (from Peter Gabriel 4/Security) and “Digging in the Dirt” (from Us).

These songs are already part of the canon, and in this live setting you get years of Peter Gabriel’s sharp, thoughtful songwriting delivered with clarity and weight.

While In The Big Room shouldn’t be anyone’s first Peter Gabriel album (or even their first Peter Gabriel live album), it’s a solid set of well-recorded and energetically-performed songs that reflects the expansive nature of Gabriel’s live performances (despite the relatively small scale of the concert itself). For Gabriel devotees, it’s an essential document that offers an alternate look at the same period covered by the Growing Up: Live concert film (and later digital album).