Secret World Live is the second live album and tenth album overall by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel, released on 30 August 1994 in the UK.[4] The album documents the concert experience of the Secret World Tour. A concert film of the same name was released simultaneously. Its track listing omits "Red Rain" and adds "San Jacinto" after "Blood of Eden".
Recording
The album was recorded over the two nights of 16 and 17 November 1993 at the Palasport Nuovo in Modena, Italy.[5] A companion release, SW Live EP, recorded over the same two nights, included the live tracks "Red Rain", "Digging in the Dirt" and "Come Talk to Me" from this release, as well as "San Jacinto" and "Mercy Street", though the specific track listing varies by release by country.[6][7][8][9][10]
Cover artwork
The artwork for the album cover was directed by Michael Colson and co-ordinated by Martha Ladly (formerly of Martha and the Muffins) who was working for Gabriel at the time, with cover images by Fab 4 and Danny Jenkins. It received a nomination for the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Record Sleeve Packaging Design. Danny Jenkins said of his photograph: "I have always been interested in making images and had amassed an extensive collection of 80s office detritus for my digital montages [...] The core photograph of the album was shot in my studio back yard with my Pentax K1000 camera [...] The receiver was randomly picked from a pile of phones and the hand actually belongs to my long-suffering studio assistant Becky Jemmett. It was pure luck and chance that the phone and hand were a convincing enough match for Peter's on-stage version."[11]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Peter Gabriel, except "Across the River", written by Stewart Copeland, Gabriel, David Rhodes, and L. Shankar, and "Shaking the Tree", written by Gabriel and Youssou N'Dour