In mid-February, people like George Clooney, Tilda Swinton or Viggo Mortensen can meet you at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. This year's number of stars at the Berlinale's main playground has seldom been as high as it is now. The round gentleman in an XL shirt with a silver-white stubble hairstyle and d'Artagnan beard is hardly noticeable. Peter Gabriel flew to Berlin on this afternoon of 11 February to personally present the preview of his concert film "Back To Front". The prog and art rock visionary has just chosen Berlinale madness for this. But the musician doesn't seem to be aware of the hype of the international film festival.
Shielded from a small entourage, it is routed directly to the Cinemaxx cinema in Potsdamer Straße, which is full of industry and media representatives. Later on, the screening of his film has hardly started, and the former Genesis singer will be on his way to the airport in a taxi again. An effort that proves that the Briton is very keen on his latest project: the film documentation of his current tour - a combination of an exhibition of his work and an anniversary performance of the album classic "So". But before it can be seen, Mr. Gabriel himself takes the floor. He's basically a "boring person," he says. He used the spotlight on the stage to transform himself into someone else up there. He cites the comparison with a mask, a kind of filter, through which the persona he wants to evoke in his songs penetrates.
The multimedia nerd adds a few sentences to the technical dimensions of the show. For use on the documented evening in London's O2 Arena in October 2013, there will be individually moving spotlights and ten film cameras, which will be moved by black masked, barely perceptible stage technicians. An enormous apparatus with the effect of a bizarre robotic ballet.
