Review: Steve Hackett, Colston Hall

Hardcore Genesis fans were outraged (oh, OK, rather cross, and moved to write mildly disgruntled letters to the Radio Times) when Steve Hackett’s pivotal contribution to the band was virtually written out of the Beeb’s recent documentary. As if to remind us of all the earlier, flowerier prog classics he had a hand in composing, Hackett has been hawking his Genesis Revisited project around the nation’s concert halls to great success over the last few years. But you can’t do that kind of thing forever without turning into a tribute to yourself. So this time we got something refreshingly different.

With a new album, Wolflight, to promote, Hackett performs as his own support act. The first part of this epic, nigh-on three hour show is a career-spanning review of his solo material, backed by most of the excellent musicians he brought to the Colston Hall back in 2013 – with the addition of Flower Kings/Transatlantic guitarist Roine Stolt, resplendent in retina-scorching purple and pink, on bass and 12-string guitar. Haunting instrumental opener Spectral Mornings could have slotted in comfortably on any 1970s Genesis album, but there’s an impressive diversity to the rest of the set. Jacuzzi is reworked as an acoustic duet with Hackett’s flautist brother John, the harmony-heavy Loving Sea recalls CSN, and the likes of Love Song to a Vampire from Wolflight suggests that Hackett, unlike many other proggers of his generation, has been paying close attention to 21st century prog-metal. Nobody could accuse him of being a particularly strong or versatile singer – the word ‘adequate’ springs to mind – so Nad Sylvan is drafted in for the jazzy Icarus Ascending, which was sung by the late Richie Havens on the Please Don’t Touch album. The sprawling Shadow of the Hierophant, originally worked up for Foxtrot, closes the first half of the show, brings the audience to its feet and sets things up nicely for part two.

Time for the Genesis set, though casual fans have to be patient. The twist is that Hackett delves more deeply into the catalogue to dust down songs that the band rarely played live back in the day. Drawing chiefly on Foxtrot and Selling England by the Pound, he once again invokes the composer’s right to tinker, which just occasionally results in an excess of alto sax tootling from jazzer Rob Townsend but is mostly hugely effective, especially when he breaks out those soaring twin guitar melodies with the talented Stolt. A rare example of Social Conscience Genesis, albeit in a sci-fi setting, opener Get ‘Em Out by Friday – an attack on corporate greed in the housing market (nothing ever changes) – sees Sylvan and authentic singing drummer Gary O’Toole sharing the vocals that were originally performed by Peter Gabriel alone. Can-Utility and the Coastliners, which Hackett describes as Foxtrot‘s ‘Cinderella song’, gets a rare outing, as does After the Ordeal – his lengthy instrumental from Selling England by the Pound. Beautifully sung by the flamboyant Sylvan, The Cinema Show reminds us how truly adventurous Genesis often were, being a cut’n’shut that shouldn’t work but does so magnificently: a gentle love song that segues into an epic keyboard-driven instrumental in 7/8.

Crowd-pleasers? We got those too, including The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, The Musical Box and traditional closing encore Firth of Fifth, with the piano intro that Tony Banks refused to play live perhaps pointedly reinstated. Hackett needn’t stop here, as there’s plenty of other rarely aired stuff in the archive. Can we have Harold the Barrel and Twilight Alehouse next time, please Steve?