Peter Gabriel Rolls Out i/o The Tour

A little over a week ago, Peter Gabriel kicked off his first European tour in nearly a decade. i/o The Tour reaches the UK and Ireland in mid-June with arena shows in Birmingham, London, Glasgow, Manchester, and Dublin.

Peter Gabriel

“It’s been a while and I am now surrounded by a whole lot of new songs and am excited to be taking them out on the road for a spin,” says Gabriel. “Look forward to seeing you out there.”

The new songs Gabriel is referring to are from i/o, his first studio album of new original material since 2002’s Up. Although the long-awaited album doesn’t have a release date yet, Gabriel has already put out five songs from it, including the title track.

“It’s been around for a long time as a title for this project. I always knew I was going to write a song called i/o, but the title came first,” Gabriel says.

“i/o means input / output. You see it on the back of a lot of electrical equipment and it just triggered some ideas about the stuff we put in and pull out of ourselves, in physical and non-physical ways. That was the starting point of this idea and then trying to talk about the interconnectedness of everything,” he continues.

Check out a video of Gabriel introducing his touring band for the i/o tour below:

“The older I get, I probably don’t get any smarter, but I have learned a few things and it makes a lot of sense to me that we are not these independent islands that we like to think we are, that we are part of a whole. If we can see ourselves as better connected, still messed up individuals, but as part of a whole, then maybe there’s something to learn?”

The song is one of several new tracks — including the already-released Panopticom, Four Kinds Of Horses, Playing For Time, and The Court — in the set list alongside classics like Solsbury Hill, Sledgehammer, In Your Eyes, and Biko from his extensive back catalogue.

To help him bring these songs to life, Gabriel has teamed up with long-term bandmates Tony Levin (bass), David Rhodes (guitar), and Manu Katché (drums). They’re joined by Ayanna Witter-Johnson (cello, piano, and vocals), Marina Moore (violin, viola, and vocals), Don McLean (keyboards), Josh Shpak (trumpet, french horn, keyboard, and vocals), and Richard Evans (guitar and flute).