Peter Gabriel is 'older, fatter and bald' at the OVO Hydro Glasgow

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He is due on at 8pm. And bang on 8 he appears.

Life began with meteorites, we are told. What is real and what is fake?

“It might surprise you to learn that you’re looking at an avatar. But unlike the Abba show, my avatar is 20 years older, 20 pounds heavier and completely bald. Meanwhile, I’m ripped and lying on a beach…"

And all this is before we have begun to venture into the inventive mind of the man who began his musical journey with prog-rock era Genesis and has spent his solo career transitioning from experimental indie-pop, funky cod-soul crowd pleasing, a dabbling of world music and all the time staying the right side of becoming Sting.

This is Peter Gabriel as his dazzling new show showcases a new album lands in Glasgow.

Now 73, you might think it was time to pack it all in and rest back on the royalties of Sledgehammer.

Not a bit of it.

Normally arena shows by established artists would tend to be leaning on all the hits.

But in 2023, Gabriel is touring with a new album, which in typically obtuse style isn't even out yet.

In a show that lasted three hours - albeit with an interval - it might be described by some as brave, or even self-indulgent to smother your set with wall to wall new songs from I/O, his upcoming tenth studio album.

But these songs are some of the catchiest he has recorded and do not fail to hit home wrapped around the lush instrumentation and dazzlingly artful cinematography provided throughout here.

What is the first full-length album of new material in over 21 years since his 2002 LP Up is due out at a date yet to be fixed. It will be curious to discover just how they will come over outside the engaging dressing at the Hydro.

After a low key opener, Washing of the Water from his 1992 album Us, came a strange introduction to a host of his front loaded new songs - and was set as if the band were around a campfire.

"Before there were words, we communed by sound," he offers. "Imagine sitting round a fire, making noises together while we attempt to grow up."

Cue Growing Up, a captivating anthemic song full of clever hooks and twists and it as if he has never been away.

There is a change of pace and a full electricifying band greeted another new song Panopticon which is a bewitching jewel.

A good chunk of Gabriel's crowd will have remembered when one of this set's highlights Solisbury Hill, his first solo single from 1977 was released - and there is a gentle appreciation as he takes us through some other earworm-worthy new songs including breastbeating anthems such as Four Kinds of Horses and the album's title track I/O.

Part one ends with the crowd on their feet for the first time. It is Sledgehammer time and Gabriel, dressed all in black comes from behind his keyboard and struts around the stage for the first time with arms aloft.

It was a similar story in the second half, where the biggest reception was for his classic songs including the emotional Don't Give Up featuring the glittering voice of Ayanna Witter-Johnson playing the Kate Bush part. The proto-funk beast that is Big Time from his popular 1986 album So performed the same trick as Sledgehammer with Gabriel summoning up the last vestiges of energy to pump his fists repeatedly.

What we didn't get was some of his early big brash experimental pop - and incidentally to these ears the most enticing offerings of his career - such as the magnificent I Have The Touch and Shock The Monkey.

And you can forget Games Without Frontiers.

But within this package of often gentle and beautiful moments it may make more sense to unleash the gorgeous And Still, which reflects on Gabriel’s relationship with his mother, who died in 2016.

From that early era we did get, perhaps the most obvious way to shut this 22-song show down - the powerful (still) anti-apartheid anthem Biko, inspired by the death of the black South African activist Steve Biko.