Pam and I went to see Steve Hackett. For those who don’t know, Hackett was lead guitarist for Genesis from Nursery Cryme thru Wind and Wuthering. He’s also done an awful lot of solo work.

When we got the tickets for the concert, I checked what kind of a concert it was going to be. Hackett sometimes performs mostly his own work and sometimes performs mostly Genesis work. The ads said that it was a “Genesis Revisited” tour which is what I’d hoped.

When the performance started, they played only tunes from Hackett’s solo career. I started to worry that I’d misread the ad and that this was a solo only tour.

I like Hackett’s solo work but not as much as the Genesis pieces that he performs. He’s also subject to Sturgeon’s Law – “90% of everything is crud”. The remaining 10% is pretty darn good in Hackett’s case. He’s also pretty prolific so that his 10% is enough to fill a concert.

As he played more of his solo works, I made my peace with it and enjoyed the concert. Then he announced that the band would take a break and then do the Genesis stuff when they got back.

Woohoo!

In case you lost track, I started by thinking that we were going to a really great concert, then I thought that we’d see an okay concert, then I found out that we were at a really great concert after all.

I checked later and found that the tour was advertised as “Genesis Revisited and Hackett Classics”.

The Audience

We didn’t see too many people who were younger than us. There were a lot of 60s burnouts with their remaining hair long and unkempt. Where we sat we saw a number of couples and the occasional gaggle of guys.

During the break, I went to powder my nose. There was a very long line for the guys’ washroom but no line at all for the women. Perhaps this was more of a sausage-fest than I’d realized. I figured that this would be different with a Keith Urban concert.

Unreleased Songs

Some artists like to perform unreleased works as a way to fine-tune them for recording. Some folks are thrilled at this opportunity. While I hate to appear ungrateful, this doesn’t do a thing for me. I very rarely like a song before hearing it a few times. With very rare exceptions that I can’t think of right now, I’ve eventually disliked/hated music that I’ve immediately liked.

Hackett’s Solo Songs

Hackett opened with a melodic piece called “Every Day” from Spectral Mornings which is a pleasant enough song. That was followed by an unreleased work and then “The Steppes” from Defector.

Somewhere amongst other unreleased works was “Slogans”, also from Defector. I know that it’s not on the list at the end of this post, but I checked with Pam and she remembers it too.

He ended the Hackett part of the show with the instrumental section of “Shadow of the Hierophant” from Voyage of the Acolyte. This started with a very quiet bell or triangle or something playing very slowly and then progressively louder. After a while, I felt with each new iteration that this was the loudest that it could possibly get. Then it got louder anyway.

My only quibble with the performance of “Shadow of the Hierophant” is that they didn’t use the big bell sound that was present in the studio recording. It added a nice punctuation to the climax of the piece. Then again, I’d wondered how they’d made that audible over everything else that was going on.

Genesis Songs

“Horizons” from Foxtrot and “Blood on the Rooftops” from Wind and Wuthering were some of Hackett’s best works with Genesis. His acoustic guitar work was enough to shut up even the morons who like to shout and whistle during the quiet bits.
“Afterglow”, also from Wind and Wuthering, is one of the few Genesis songs that can be danced to. Pam and I took advantage of that fact by dancing to it at our wedding. Not that we knew how to dance back then. We probably did the penguin shuffle or something.

If “Firth of Fifth” from Selling England by the Pound isn’t my favorite Genesis song, it’s in the top 3. It’s got a great keyboard solo. And a great guitar solo. And another great keyboard solo. There are times where you can’t tell where the keyboard stops and the guitar starts and then it goes back again and the melodies overlay each other to form new melodies and, and, and…
I need a cigarette.

Hackett then announced that they’d now play one more song. There were some moans from the audience “Only one?” someone asked.

They didn’t get it. Hackett’s grin telegraphed that the “one song” would be the 22 minutes of “Supper’s Ready” from Foxtrot. “Supper’s Ready” is also in my top 3. Within that, my favorite section is the keyboard/guitar/drum session call “Apocalypse in 9/8”.

For an encore, they returned to play “The Musical Box” (in my top 5) from Nursery Cryme.

The show lasted until about 10:30. We went home musically exhausted (I’m not sure what that means either).

I snagged this song list from http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/steve-hackett/2017/20-monroe-live-grand-rapids-mi-1bf99180.html and then formatted it a bit.

Hackett’s solo songs:
Every Day
El Niño
The Steppes
In the Skeleton Gallery
Behind the Smoke
Serpentine Song
Rise Again
Shadow of the Hierophant (ending instrumental)

Genesis songs:
Eleventh Earl of Mar
Horizons
Blood on the Rooftops
…In That Quiet Earth
Afterglow
Dance on a Volcano
Firth of Fifth
Supper’s Ready