Hackett Still Wired

I, Melachi ibn Amillar, being of unsound mind and body, did attend a concert of Steve Hackett, at the Assembly Hall, Islington, London, on Sunday 20 May, 2012. He is best known as the former Genesis guitarist with a distinctive pianistic style, involving muting the strings after each note is struck, giving an effect very like a synthesizer; and for an extraordinarily chromatic solo at the end of the 1973 live recording of "The Knife".

Forty years on, neither chromaticism or pianism were much in evidence, the guitar work being rather conventional, and he really needs to work out to be a bona fide guitar God. The show had an interval, and I had a comfy chair at the front. The first half was 70s material from his old group and first solo album. Highlights were Watcher of the Skies and the outro section from the Acolyte. The drumming vocalist is best not remarked upon, though the original bar was set rather low. The lower string of the bass was slightly out of tune at the beginning. There was a backing guitarist I could scarcely hear, who also sang pleasantly enough. The second half was newer material neither I nor most of the audience had previously heard, a bit like Mostly Autumn crossed with King Crimson. The male vocals sounded taped. The saxophonist was excellent, though to turn the tension up a further notch some phrases could have been bluer (flatter). Rock guitarists who try to lead their bands have always struck me as an oddity: Slash, Schenker, Rutherford; Hackett also. I suggest he let someone like the lady vocalist ("Amanda" I believe) reinterpret the Genesis songs, if not all of them, and make the show more of a collective affair. Where is the shame in playing the guitar? Particularly when it is still connected by actual wires. Melachi has spoken!