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Review: Steve Hackett, Bath Forum
Ray Jackson is in the audience tonight, Steve Hackett tells us. They last toured together 51 years ago as part of the Charisma Records ‘Six Bob Tour’ (yep, three bands for 30p) – one of the era’s earliest and most commercially successful package tours. That was shortly after Hackett and Phil Collins had joined the then-unknown Genesis, who were promptly sent on the road by label boss Tony Stratton-Smith with Van Der Graaf Generator and Lindisfarne (featuring Jackson on vocals, mandolin and harmonica) – the tour’s biggest draw, thanks to debut album Nicely Out of Tune being such a huge hit.
But while Hackett was a regular visitor to the Hall Formerly Known as Colston in recent years, he’s in Peter Gabriel’s postcode tonight. Although Gabriel is reportedly beavering away on his first studio album in 20 years, surely he could have found time to poke his head round the door – especially as it’s 40 years, almost to the day, since Genesis reunited in a rainswept Milton Keynes Bowl to bail out their former frontman’s ailing hobby project, WOMAD. It’s not as though he never leaves Box. Gabriel once turned up to watch Genesis tribute act The Musical Box in Bristol and wound up being mobbed by fans.
is needed now More than ever
Hackett’s fate has been to have his vital contributions to classic-era Genesis as a composer and musician overlooked and underappreciated, though punters seem to care far more about this than he does. He’s also the Keeper of the Flame, being the only member of the breakthrough line-up who’s interested in keeping this great music alive with the regular Genesis Revisited tours. Tonight it’s the turn of Foxtrot, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary (“It was recorded in ’72, the same age I am now . . . Shit!”).
As usual, this is preceded by a set of Hackett solo material, which is tonight drawn primarily from the late seventies Voyage of the Acolyte and Spectral Mornings albums. Instrumental opener Ace of Wands sounds somewhat jazzier than we remember it, largely due to the input of Rob Townsend on saxophone. Given that early Genesis wasn’t exactly overburdened with brass instrumentation, Townsend proves to be one of the busiest musicians on stage tonight, also wrangling flute, percussion, additional keyboards, backing vocals and occasional bass pedals (when Jonas Reingold is beavering away on 12-string guitar).
Vocalist Nad Sylvan wafts on for a more recent composition, the suitably gothic The Devil’s Cathedral (careful, Steve – you’re playing in a church), which reminds us that the quality bar has never been permitted to slip. Hackett’s sister-in-law Amanda Lehmann joins in on second guitar for the haunting title track from Spectral Mornings and sticks around to contribute to the rare five-part harmony vocals on Every Day. She also returns to sing rousing traditional set closer Shadow of the Hierophant, which Hackett wrote for Foxtrot only to see it unfairly rejected by the rest of the band. He’s on typically stunning form throughout, and while not the most natural of vocalists now seems much more comfortable in this role.
After a short interval, it’s time for the album, performed in its entirety and in sequence. While note perfect Sylvan hasn’t brought the Peter Gabriel dressing-up box, he does wield a prop telescope for Watcher of the Skies (he’s literally watching the skies, y’see) while Roger King gives it the authentic Tony Banks in that sonorous intro. Gabriel’s Get ’em Out by Friday was a rare prog foray into social commentary although, perhaps wisely, Swedish Sylvan doesn’t attempt the Winkler’s gorblimey accent.
Concluding what was side one (in old money) of the album, Can-Utility and the Coastliners is pretty much a solo Hackett composition based on the Canute legend. With no one present to flip the vinyl, it’s followed by the guitarist’s sublime acoustic instrumental Horizons, which sets up the full Supper’s Ready – that triumph of bolting bits together to see if they work. “If it’s not the longest song ever written, it’s pretty close,” Hackett reminded us at the outset of the show.
Naturally, this gets a standing ovation from the capacity crowd and the band are soon back with an encore that concludes with Los Endos, presumably relying on muscle memory from the previous Seconds Out tour, which didn’t reach these parts, with the ever-excellent Craig Blundell going full Phil Collins (ace drummer period) on his specially designed kit (he’ll be back in Bath with Frost* next month).
This time, the ovation feels like it will never end, until they slowly troop off the stage. What next? Well, Selling England by the Pound turns 50 next year, so let’s hope Hackett will revisit that one again, perhaps even reviving the big production that toured the world and was filmed but never officially released.
All pix by Mike Evans
Read more: Metal & Prog Picks: October 2022
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