Music
04 Apr 23

With Peter Gabriel's 'i/o' track comes the news of a 3Arena show on i/o The Tour 2023

With Peter Gabriel's 'i/o' track comes the news of a 3Arena show on <i> i/o The Tour 2023</i>

Peter Gabriel by Nadav Kander (2023)

Dropping April 6th, Peter Gabriel's 'i/o' comes ahead of the i/o album and his i/o The Tour 2023 this summer.

On April 6th, the English musician and ex-Genesis legend Peter Gabriel's new single 'i/o' (Bright Side Mix) drops via Real World/Virgin Music UK.

A mix of the title track of his upcoming album i/o, 'i/o' (Bright Side Mix) was mostly recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire and The Beehive in London.

"This month the song is 'i/o' and i/o means input / output," the English singer-songwriter reveals, discussing the name behind the new track.

"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."

The third of his songs released on the full moon after 'Panopticom,' which dropped on the Wolf Moon of January 6th, 'The Court' on February's Snow Moon, and 'Playing For Time' on the Worm Moon, the new single also comes ahead of his tour, also titled i/o, which will begin in May.

Peter talks about some of the inspiration behind Playing For Time, a song about 'assembling, organising and ordering memories'.

Listen to the full track here: https://t.co/pL4ZQNZ04B pic.twitter.com/9UZfchMkDc

— Peter Gabriel (@itspetergabriel) March 22, 2023

The tour will feature a date in Dublin at 3Arena on Sunday, June 25th before Peter Gabriel goes across the Atlantic to start the North American leg.

"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?"

Working with a different artist for each recent song release, 'i/o' (Bright Side Mix) features a collaboration with the Soweto Gospel Choir. Working together before on projects like 'Down to Earth' for Disney-Pixar's Wall-E, Gabriel also performed with the Choir in South Africa at events for Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu.

"I didn't always hear the Soweto Gospel Choir on this song," Peter admits, "But every time I've worked with them it's always been fantastic. You can just feel the energy whenever they sing on this record, and on the song I did for Wall-E, it's just joyous. It hits you in the heart."

'i/o' also features the fantastical art of "the king of light" Olafur Eliasson on the cover. They met while working on the Little Sun Project.

"A lot of his work is to do with light and with nature and I really felt that for this song in particular he would be absolutely perfect and I was delighted when he said, yes. This piece is called Colour experiment no. 114, from 2022."

Colour experiment no. 114, 2022 by Olafur Eliasson

"I think Olafur is a mixture between artist, scientist and magician," the legendary rock musician explains. "He always has a mission and something to say about the world and nature and light and our experience of it and that helps us to reconsider how we interact with our environment.

'i/o' will come with differing mix approaches. The Bright Side Mix comes from the mind of Mark 'Spike' Stent, with Tchad Black handling (The Dark-Side) Mix and Hans-Martin Buff' handling his Atmos mix (In-Side Mix), both of which will also be released later in April.

Check out Peter Gabriel's European tour dates for the i/o The Tour 2023 here:

Thursday, 18 May - Krakow, Poland - TAURON Arena

Saturday, 20 May - Verona, Italy - Verona Arena

Sunday, 21 May - Milan, Italy - Mediolanum Arena

Tuesday, 23 May - Paris, France - AccorHotels Arena

Wednesday, 24 May - Lille, France - Stade Pierre-Mauroy

Friday, 26 May - Berlin, Germany - Waldbuehne

Sunday, 28 May - Munich, Germany - Koenigsplatz

Tuesday, 30 May - Copenhagen, Denmark - Royal Arena

Wednesday, 31 May - Stockholm, Sweden - Avicii Arena

Friday, 2 June - Bergen, Norway - Koengen

Monday, 5 June - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Ziggo Dome