In support of his upcoming album, ‘Scratch My Back,’ Peter Gabriel will embark on The New Blood tour at select venues in Europe and North America. Reflecting the music on his new two-disc CD, he will be accompanied by a 54-piece orchestra-not drums and guitars.

Gabriel’s first studio album since 2002 will be released in the UK/Europe February 16 and the US March 2, covering songs by artists such as Radiohead and David Bowie, who will in turn record his music on an upcoming collection called “I’ll Scratch Yours.”

The tour dates:
March 22: Paris, Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy
March 24-25: Berlin, O2 Arena
March 27-28: London, O2 Arena
April 28: Montreal, Bell Centre
May 2-3: New York City, Radio City Music Hall
May 7: Los Angeles, Hollywood Bowl

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Peter Gabriel is an internationally famous musician and Third World activist, and was the original lead singer with Genesis. He is not only known for his Eastern and African-influenced music, but also for several ground-breaking music videos (most notably Sledgehammer, his highest-charting release on both sides of the Atlantic).

After leaving Genesis, Peter Gabriel began to experiment with various elements of world music as the underpinning for his dense, poetic lyrics. Although he released a series of successful song-oriented albums, Peter Gabriel 1, 2, 3, and 4 (aka Car, Scratch, Melt, and Security), he didn’t really hit a commercial high until 1986 with his now seminal album So and its slightly less successful counterpart Us. The last studio album from Gabriel was 2002’s Up. He has also composed and recorded soundtracks for films as diverse as Birdy (which contained re-purposed snippets of his studio albums to date), The Last Temptation of Christ, and Rabbit Proof Fence. He also sang the Randy Newman composed title song to Babe: Pig in the City called That’ll Do. He recently contributed to the wall-e soundtrack, singing the end title song Down to Earth, and composing two other tracks.

He created one of the more innovative videos of its time for the song Sledgehammer, with the then-fledgling Aardman Animations studio.