Steve Hackett made a stop at Tucson’s Fox Theatre on October 16th with his Genesis Revisited tour showcasing the 1973 landmark album Selling England By The Pound in its entirety. The album contains some of Genesis’ most decorated and experimental songs that include Firth of Fifth,” “The Battle of Epping Forest” and “The Cinema Show.” Selling England also contained the band’s first top 30 hit song in England, “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe).” Hackett has mentioned that it is his favorite Genesis record and it is the record that the band really hit their stride as artists, leading to 1974’s ambitious concept double album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
This current tour is also celebrating Hackett’s 40-year-old solo album, Spectral Mornings. The first set of the show is filled with six songs from the album including the title cut and here are also songs from his latest release, At the Edge of Light, including an Arizona inspired track titled “At The Edge of Light.”
Hackett spoke about how when he recorded Spectral Mornings in Holland that winter he was surrounded by snow and frozen lakes while mentioning – “we had no choice but to party in order to keep warm. We consumed quite a lot of substances most of which was scotch and coke. It’s surprising that the album sounded so cohesive as it did. At least it was written when we were sober.”
Hackett thanked the crowd for coming out on a weekday night, as the second set was a mesmerizing performance of Selling England By the Pound. Hackett’s soaring and transcendental guitar work on both electric and acoustic guitars was spellbinding as highlights including the peaking solo on “Firth of Fifth” which is arguably Genesis’ most famous electric guitar solo.
Vocalist Nad Sylvan tapped into the soulful essence of the Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins vocals without giving the impression that he was imitating them, whether echoing Gabriel on “Dancing With The Moonlit Knight” or Collins on “More Fool Me.” With his tall slim stature and androgynous appearance, Sylvan makes for the consummate prog-theatrical lead singer.
In Hackett’s backing band, Craig Blundell revealed in all the fills and beats of the complicated song passages, while Rob Townsend played every instrument from a box-shaped percussion instrument, saxophone, flute, and clarinet. Roger King on keyboards and synth and curated the lengthy Tony Banks passages with precision, most noticeably on the “Firth of Fifth” into and the last few minutes of “The Cinema Show,” while Jonas Reingold on the double-neck four-string bass rounded out the band.
At the end of the album performance, Hackett introduced the “Deja Vu” as a pastoral leaning track that was written for the album but was not included and reintroduced on Hackett’s 1996 album Genesis Revisited. They also included the more straight-ahead rocker “Dance on a Volcano” from 1976’s A Trick of the Tail – the first Genesis album that saw Collins as lead singer.
Hackett continues to courageously and expertly carry on the legacy of Genesis, something his other living bandmates have since put in the rearview mirror. While any Genesis reunions remain as far off rumors, Steve Hackett and his band are continually proving to be forthright ambassadors to one of rock’s most ambitious catalogs.
