Paper Plate: Peter Gabriel Offers Solid Diet Advice Following 1974 Genesis Show

Two surprising words with an autograph displayed the quick wit of the prog legend.

The contrast couldn’t have been more stark, nor the genre span more cavernous. For two weekend nights (Friday, March 15 and Saturday, the 16th) in the spring of 1974, Columbia Records’ newly-heralded signee, Bruce Springsteen, held the stage at the legendary Armadillo World Headquarters near downtown Austin, TX, six months from his 25th birthday.

His sophomore LP, The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, had been released the previous November, and critics, at the time, were torn between early fanboy adulation and studied indifference…mostly the latter. It wouldn’t be until the late summer of ‘75 that would see Springsteen enjoy the Born to Run magazine-cover supernova stardom that would ultimately put the Monmouth County, New Jersey native on the musical map for the next four decades plus.

From Flannel to Flower Heads

Meanwhile, another 24-year-old, this one from Surrey Hill Borough, England, walked onto the Armadillo stage just 20 hours after a perspiring “Boss” walked off it to ravenous cheers. Lead singer Peter Gabriel, fronting prog rock pioneers, Genesis, was already several weeks into the group’s tour supporting their Selling England by the Pound album, their fifth studio effort, released in October 1973.

The date was Sunday, March 17, 1974 (the eve of my 19th birthday), and one could almost smell faded denim, plaid flannel, and questionable smoke still lingering from the night before.

Do They Know More Than Their Childhood Games?

Already a Genesis fan for several months, I couldn’t resist driving from my North Texas State dorm room to the Texas capital for the show. As lead singer and flautist in the Houston-based cover band, Brimstone, since my sophomore year at Bellaire High, I was drawn to Pete’s role in his band, as well as the overall dynamism and emotions so consistently displayed in their sound.

Our lead guitarist, David, was into all things prog: King Crimson, Gong, Camel, Van der Graaf Generator, Gentle Giant, and Genesis. While visiting his house, he’d always play something new from his “noodling bands” (as I derisively called them), not really interested in the long, drawn-out meanderings exhibited by most of them.

And then, “Watcher of the Skies.” The lead track off Foxtrot had me mesmerized by its Tony Banks-driven mellotron chords, and Phil Collins’ time signature-defying martial rhythm. While I immediately bought my own copy and happily digested both sides, I couldn’t get over “Watcher.” Within a week, I was pounding out Phil’s beat (with two index fingers) on every table- and desk top I sat in front of! Big brother rolled his eyes at dinner, and third-period teachers, watchers of all, glared through my soul.

“Do they play elsewhere?”

His Was a World Alone

The Armadillo had a wooden dance floor abutting the stage, with tables and chairs filling the remaining back two-thirds of the hall. Myself and several dozen more gobsmacked, long-haired teens sat cross-legged on the dance floor. I was around third row, center, with maybe twenty feet separating me from the bat-winged, rainbow-caped overseer of the show’s opener.

Risking hyperbole, if a song’s performance can be a religious experience, I was ready to get confirmed, tithe ten percent, and await the savior. The rest of the show was similarly stunning, and now rests comfortably in the top five best concerts/shows I’ve seen (and that includes a 1970 Led Zeppelin show, and the Sex Pistols, about which more can be read here:

Plus, I’ve seen The Who ca. ‘74, the original Broadway Dreamgirls and the Supremes opening for Judy Garland in the Astrodome)! And, only a couple of those round out my top five.

More Genesis:

Paperlate….’Cause You’ll Be Coming Back

The hall cleared out, and I stuck around in front of the stage waiting to see if any of the band might venture out. Sure enough, out walks Pete! Offering him a pen, but nothing on which to write, he looked down, and spotted a clean paper plate. Picking it up, he proceeded to write, “To Brad, Eat Well…Peter Gabriel.” He’ll be happy to know I’ve been following his sage advice ever since!

For eagle-eyed word play junkies like myself, you’ll notice the one-letter difference between the phrase from “Dancing With the Moonlit Knight” (more Peter word-play!), “Paper late, cried a voice in the crowd,” and the white, flimsy object he somehow spotted on a recently-cleared dance floor on which he happened to write, appropriately enough, “Eat well.”

Was this his salutation on autographs he wrote to every fan, assuming everyone wasn’t packing picnic paraphernalia at the time?

It’s been reported that “Paperlate,” although not seeing the light of day until 1982 as part of a three-song EP called Spot the Pigeon (at least that’s what mine—possibly an import—was called), was written around the time of the Selling England LP, taking its creative cue from that mention in “Dancing.”

Friendly and engaging as Gabriel was, I wish I could’ve seen into the future far enough to tell him I’d see him later…oh, I don’t know, on his next and ultimately final Genesis tour appearance for The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

That would’ve been at the Houston Music Hall, January 17, 1975, ten months after our initial Austin meeting. Amazingly, Peter was less than a month away from his 25th birthday.

As memorable as that 1975 Lamb show was, I can’t clearly recall where my friend and I had dinner that night before the show. But, I don’t need a menu or a photo to know one thing: I certainly ate well.

Still more Genesis: