IT must be great to be Peter Gabriel. In his mid-fifties, he is producing the best work of his career about the process of aging while on stage he is having enormous fun behaving like a child.

Friday night's stage set - a silver and black circle in the middle of the Arena floor - appeared to have limited possibilities for Gabriel's time-honoured theatricals, and his ascetic dress - silver short hair and monk-like blackgarb - made it look as if he had put away childish things. The opener was Here Comes the Flood: one man, one piano and portents of death.

Yet then the outer edge of the stage began revolving, and from out of its middle for Games Without Frontiers came an electronic two-wheeled shopping trolley which Gabriel rolled around on, saluting his surprisingly small audience (£36-a-ticket is a lot) with a Chairman Mao-like gesture.

For Downside Up, he and his daughter Melanie (backing vocals) clipped themselves to the scaffolding ceiling and ran around upside down.

Growing Up - the title track for the show, the album and the ideas - featured Gabriel rolling around the tiny stage inside a large transparent ball, and he sang Solsbury Hill riding around on a silver Mini Moulton bicycle.

And the music? Occasionally, Gabriel tracks can drag, but he was anchored by Ged Lynch's explosive drumming, Tony Levin's dramatic bass and David Rhodes' wonderful guitar. Red Rain was tight and funky, Games Without Frontiers was a modern marvel, fresh and relevant. An absolutely tumultuous Digging in the Dirt was the surprise highlight and even Sledgehammer - his worst song but his biggest hit - steamrollered along quite marvellously.

He finished with a sinuous and gospelly In Your Eyes and a long Biko. As the thumping drums and tortured guitar chords brought it to a singalong close, Gabriel was probably backstage flicking through a boy's own catalogue of gadgets with which middle-aged men can have a lot of fun.

Published: 07/06/2004