Goodbye Tina and Hello to the Peter Gabriel FAQ

It's been a head-scratching time for Peter Gabriel fans in late summer of 2010 as the not-so-reclusive star has suddenly decided to become reclusive. Since his son Isaac Ralph Gabriel began school about 2007, Gabriel has been scheduling most of his holidays to coincide with his son's school holidays.

Gabriel's latest child, son Luc, was born in July of 2008. According to an interview with an Australian radio station done earlier this summer, Luc enjoys jumping onto his sleeping father every morning at 6 am and screaming into Daddy's face.

Happy Birthday, Five Months Late

After doing his usual rounds as host of WOMAD festival at Charlton Park with his second wife and son Isaac in tow in July, Gabriel and his family took off to the island of Sardinia, where Gabriel owns a 20-room hotel called the Li Capanni. Gabriel bought the hotel at the insistence of his then girlfriend in 2001. The hotel had been scheduled for demolition until Gabriel's Irish girlfriend stepped in. The couple married there in 2002 while she was pregnant with Isaac.

Because Gabriel was frantically into promoting his latest album, "Scratch My Back" during his actual 60^th birthday on February 13, his birthday party was postponed until the family, friends and hired band could get to Sardinia.

Hello, Melbourne - No, Just Kidding

Gabriel was trumpeted at the headline act of an all day concert to be held at Melbourne, Australia. The concert was to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of Australia's most famous Thoroughbred horse race, the Melbourne Cup. Tickets were hundreds of Australian dollars and more and more opening acts were announced.

Some fans protested online on the forums of Gabriel's official website, petergabriel.com because of the abusive nature of horse racing. Gabriel's staff members look in at the forums but it is highly doubtful whether fan protests had anything to do with Gabriel abruptly cancelling his Melbourne appearance. For more details, see Peter Gabriel and the Melbourne Cup Fiasco.

As of September 9, there is still no mention on Gabriel's site about the concert's cancellation. Any ticket holders only have until September 29 in order to get a refund.

Goodbye Tina

Even more startling to fans was the sudden abrupt departure of Tina (no last name known), Gabriel's full-time fan liaison and part-time PR writer since 1980. When Tina announced her resignation to Gabriel is unknown, but by the time her last site update to fans went up on September 1, she was gone. She gave no reason for her departure, other than one cryptic sentence:

"However, the time has come to move on and explore the other real world (visit exotic and far away places, chocolate shops around the globe and maybe, even track down that elusive eagle) so this will be my last update."

To read her full statement, click here.

Hello FAQ Page

It is currently unknown if Tina's job will be replaced. This writer is guessing the replacement will be Real World Studios employee Rachel Hedley, who helped coordinate Gabriel's autographed items for charity auctions. However, Tina herself did not note a replacement and no announcement have been made by Real World Studios.

What has happened is that a FAQ sheet has been added to Gabriel's official website. On it, it urges fans to not ask for backstage passes, not send Gabriel any more gifts "due to lack of storage space" and to please stop sending him artwork or creative writing. It also notes that they appreciate the kindness in gift-giving and wanting to meet Gabriel, but the requests and mountain of gifts are just getting overwhelming.

It also requests that any fan websites please stop using any copyrighted material (good luck with that, Real World) and that Gabriel will no longer send autographs in the mail (although he stopped this practice about 2008.) Gabriel gets between 200 and 300 requests for autographed items just from charities per year. That's got to give one wicked case of writer's cramp.

New Blood Second Leg

As of this writing, Gabriel is in "a secret location" in London rehearsing for the second European leg of the New Blood tour. The first concert will be on Sunday, September 12 in Switzerland. This writer hopes to be at the second gig in Leipzig, Germany if her airline (US Air) doesn't go on strike. I fly on September 11 (no joke.)

Read here for a detailed review of Gabriel and the New Blood Orchestra in Berlin, Germany in March.

References:

http://www.wiltsglosstandard.co.uk/news/8289905.WOMAD_to_stay_at_Charlton_Park_for_the_next_five_years/

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Old+rockers+never+die!(they+just+open+exclusive+hotels)%3b+Rock+star...-a0121158232

http://www.petergabriel.com/faq/