Human Rights Now! Concert: Harare 1988 - Part 5

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This is the next part of my chronical of travelling to the 1988 Amnesty International Human Rights Now! concert in Harare, Zimbabwe. In Part 4 the concert was in full swing with Youssou N’Dour and Tracy Chapman having done their sets. Next up: Peter Gabriel.

Today 7 October 2018 marks the 30th anniversary of this historic concert

Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel's set started with a bang - enormous sound and a spectacular light show. He had a lighting "machine" which looked like an upside-down alien octopus. I had never seen anything like it. Of course, the kind of light shows put on by Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson in the 90's would become even more spectacular, but the 80's belonged to Peter Gabriel, lighting-wise.

It was a magnificent act - both musically and visually. Gabriel had skillfully used the MTV video revolution to make him a worldwide star, and he interwove these images into his performance in a breathtaking way.

His set-list included many of his greatest hits, including Games Without Frontiers, Don't Give Up - with Tracy Chapman singing the Kate Bush part, the magnificent In Your Eyes, and Sledgehammer with its massive energy and sound.

Peter Gabriel is generally credited with originating "crowd surfing", where he would stand at the edge of the stage with his back to the audience. He would then fall backwards, arms outstretched. The crowd would catch him (I presume they always did) and then he would "surf" the crowd as people "walked" him to their neighbours on their hands.

So, of course, he did Lay Your Hands On Me, with the full surf.

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His final song was Biko. This was very close to home since it recounts the death of Steve Biko - a black South African activist who was murdered by the "Security Police", basically the SS of the Apartheid regime. This lead to massive protests and crackdowns by the security forces. Its effect was still being felt in 1988 because of the on-going states of emergency that had been declared in its wake.

It was the first time I had heard this song. That probably held true for most of the 20,000 South Africans at the concert because such a song would never have been allowed to be aired in the country.

It was haunting and deeply moving, a performance I will never forget.

As the song ended - with the band members leaving the stage one by one - there was a feeling of awe of what we'd just witnessed. After the clapping died down, I turned to my friend Bruce, and we both said something like: "I could leave right now. If this was the end of the concert, the drive and all the time it took to get here would be worth it".

But it wasn't over. There was still Sting and Springsteen to come. The story continues in Part 6.