Peter Gabriel performed with the New Blood Orchestra at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre in Toronto on Wednesday June 22, 2011. (Craig Robertson, QMI Agency)

TORONTO - Anyone expecting Shock the Monkey or Sledgehammer at Peter Gabriel’s Wednesday night show at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre might have left the two-and-a-half hour show feeling disappointed.

But then they probably wouldn’t have been a hardcore Gabriel fan.

If they were, they’d know the adventurous and challenging 61-year-old British musician is currently touring with The New Blood Orchestra - or as the billing goes “no guitar, no drums” - in support of his 2010 covers album, Scratch My Back, although there was a percussionist and pianist among the two dozen or so players on stage culled from England and Canada.

Seriously, Gabriel brought some major strings, horns, and woodwind players, conducted by the elegant and physical Ben Foster, along with two female backup singers - his daughter Melanie and Norwegian opening act Ana Brun - to perform alternately somber and dramatic orchestral arrangements of some of his best known songs and covers while stunning visuals were provided on multiple LED screens at the front and back of the stage.

Gabriel, dressed in a black vest and pants, even briefly appeared before Brun’s two-song opening set to explain to the audience the idea behind Scratch My Back, what he called “a songwriter’s exchange,” that will eventually see those artists whose songs he covered, cover his songs.

Hopefully.

“Herding songwriters is a bit like herding cats,” he explained.

In the meantime, a new album called New Blood, featuring orchestral arrangements of Gabriel songs - many that he performed on Wednesday night - is reportedly due this year.

Opening with a very serious, sad, slow and almost completely unrecognizable version of David Bowie’s Heroes, it took a few songs for Gabriel and the New Blood Orchestra to hit their stride with Paul Simon’s The Boy In The Bubble and Montreal band Arcade Fire’s My Body Is a Cage as he grew stronger vocally, hitting some mighty high notes, and the arrangements became more powerful.

He even screwed up the opening of the second song, Wallflower, and joked about it before beginning again.

But nothing could prepare the audience for the tearjerking presentation of Father, Son that followed as Gabriel explained how he had spent a week with his 99-year-old father and a yoga instructor and had burst into tears at one point but his father had caught him and held him.

“What do they say about country music? Three chords and the truth? That was my country moment,” said Gabriel.

As he sang the heartfelt song, black and white film of him and his father together was shown on the LED screens, and there was barely a dry eye in the house.

Gabriel is such an emotionally open and soulful singer that his vulnerability can be truly overwhelming at times.

Still, famously known as a theatrical performer, he was much more static alongside the New Blood Orchestra - with Foster a much bigger presence - until he broke out his South African protest song, Biko, at the end of the first set and got everyone standing on their feet with one arm raised and singing along.

After a short intermission, Gabriel returned for a much stronger second set with such highlights as Digging in The Dirt, Signal To Noise, Downside Up, and Rhythm of the Heat, but they were trumped by awe-inspiring versions of Mercy Street, Red Rain, In Your Eyes, and Don’t Give Up (with Brun taking over Kate Bush’s part) - all from his album So which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year - and the really creepy but effective Intruder.

Gabriel even broke out the tambourine in the second set and finally skipped around the stage during Solsbury Hill right before the encore and not a moment too soon.

SET LIST:

Heroes (David Bowie cover)

Wallflower

Après Moi (Regina Spektor cover)

The Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon cover)

My Body Is a Cage (Arcade Fire cover)

Father, Son

Darkness

Washing of the Water

Biko

INTERMISSION

San Jacinto

Digging in the Dirt

Signal to Noise

Downside Up

Mercy Street

The Rhythm of the Heat

Blood of Eden

Intruder

Red Rain

Solsbury Hill

ENCORE:

In Your Eyes

Don’t Give Up

The Nest That Sailed the Sky