Steve Hackett: Genesis Revisited concert

Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited

Date: 9 May 2013

Location: Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, UK

Support: n/a

Special guests: Nik Kershaw, Steve Rothery, Amanda Lehmann, John Wetton, Jakko Jakszyck

I like many things about 2013. I like the fact that I can access and listen to both modern and older music, and I like the fact that I can access information about said music at the click of a button, and I like the fact that CSI is always on TV. But I don’t like the fact that there are many, many great bands that I will never get to see live, and Genesis are for sure one of these bands. So when I was told that Steve Hackett, guitarist from the band’s best years, would be out there playing a selection of their best songs, I jumped at the chance to go, even though Thursday nights are technically not a good time for me to go out. So I went, and I’m really glad I did.

I was slightly late in arriving to the venue, and I could already hear the music when I was heading in. I found out that the song I’d missed was ‘Watcher of the Skies’ – I love that song! I understand its positioning, it’s a brilliant opener, but if only I’d been ten minutes faster… as it happened, when I got there Hackett and his accompanying musicians were halfway through ‘The Chamber of 32 Doors’, complete with brightly coloured lights and projections on the back wall, and it was clear that the audience were enjoying it but weren’t completely engrossed yet. Many of them were at the bar or conducting whispered conversations, giving me a chance to find a space near the front of the standing section with a good view of the stage.

But a huge cheer erupted after the a cappella beginning of the next song, ‘Dancing with the Moonlit Knight’, and I am so glad I didn’t miss that one; it has to be one of the greatest songs ever written. I knew in advance that that would be a highlight, but the unexpected surprise of the night was ‘Shadow of the Heirophant’, the only song I didn’t know prior to the concert, as it’s from one of his solo albums. (Although as Hackett himself pointed out, it counts as Genesis Revisited because it was co-written with Mike Rutherford. Considering it was a first listen, it made a pretty big impression on me.

I wasn’t 100% sure the songs would all be familiar to me, as I didn’t know how much they were like the originals and how much they were reworkings. It was definitely closer to the first; most of what he played was similar to the original Genesis versions, although understandably there was a bigger focus on guitar in quite a few of them. The biggest change in several places was the addition of the guest musicians. Amanda Lehmann provided vocals on ‘Entangled’ and the change to a female singer was surprising at first, and surprisingly good by the end. Ditto to Nik Kershaw’s vocal style on ‘The Lamia’.

I didn’t know about this in advance, so it was an awesome moment for me when, just before ‘Afterglow’, a new special guest was announced: John Wetton! John freaking Wetton, bassist for Family and some of the best King Crimson albums, there right in front of me! Unbelievable! Oh, and Steven Wilson’s mum was also there, apparently (though she didn’t play anything, she just watched.)

I’m not sure at what point this happened, and it was probably gradual, but somewhere around the ‘Unquiet Slumber / In That Quiet Earth / Afterglow’ trilogy, I noticed that the audience has stopped moving around and were fully paying attention, and by ‘I Know What I Like’ everyone was singing along. Then when ‘Dance on a Volcano’ was announced with Steve’s words ‘This one’s in 7/8 time… it’s progtastic!’ and everybody cheered before they even knew which song it was, I knew I was in a room full of likeminded people. And the same again when over half of the people standing around me knew every single word to the set’s closer, ‘Supper’s Ready’ – singing that song along with a thousand other people was a real feeling of community.

And then, after an impossibly long break where part of me thought he wasn’t going to come back, Hackett returned to the stage to play – what else – ‘Firth of Fifth’, along with ‘Los Endos’. I could quibble slightly and say that I would have preferred them the other way around, but the atmosphere was so perfect by this point that I was enjoying everything.

Overall, I thought the setlist was really well chosen. Hackett has a songwriting credit on everything he played, and he didn’t play anything that would really suffer from the loss of one of the other Genesis members (eg. ‘Get Em Out By Friday). I’d never heard Hackett’s reworkings of any of these before I went to the show, and I’d never heard any of his solo work, but I’m definitely interested in picking up some of his albums now.

For the next few nights after I went, I wished I was going again. It was a great experience with its mixture of classic moments and new, interesting twists to the songs, and I would recommend it to any fan of Peter Gabriel’s Genesis.