No stranger to this part of the world in recent years, October sees Steve Hackett, former Genesis lynchpin and prog rock guitarist without parallel, returning to Cardiff for a Utilita Arena show that leans heavily on his old band’s classic LP The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. Colin Palmer caught up with Steve at home to hear more.
“Genesis was something incredibly special, and for the early work of the band to get approval from John Lennon I think was a big feather in our cap.” So says Steve Hackett, and his celebration of his past will continue full-bore this autumn as the former Genesis guitarist honours the 50th anniversary of the band’s masterpiece The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway with a UK tour.
Renowned for his intricate and timeless guitar playing, Hackett is a complex musician drawing influences from a wide variety of styles and melding them into stellar compositions. He gained an international reputation after joining Genesis in 1971 alongside the classic lineup of Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks and Phil Collins, and with The Lamb… – a concept album over four sides of vinyl – Genesis arguably hit their highest creative peak. It remains a milestone in the field of progressive rock today.
Hackett’s tour will feature a varied setlist that spans multiple eras of Steve’s career, from Genesis classics to his latest solo material, with his fresh take on The Lamb… a centrepiece of sorts: it’s been re-sequenced for the live performances, giving it a renewed structure while maintaining its narrative core.
“I’m not doing the album in its entirety, there’s so much on that album that is keyboard-driven and lyrically intensive and there aren’t that many moments where I get to lead with the guitar,” says Steve, settled in a chair in the kitchen of his new house. “With [previous Genesis album] Selling England By The Pound, it’s a very different proposition, and with [Selling England…’s predecessor] Foxtrot there are lots of different moments of guitar extravaganzas, so I’m choosing my moments very carefully.”
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was recorded in Carmarthenshire over a few months in 1974. “It was Glaspant Manor in Capel Iwan,” Steve recalls. “The [initial] idea was we were going to record at Headley Grange – Led Zeppelin had just moved out, and we moved in.

“I think Phil Collins wanted to get the sound of the drums that were recorded at the bottom of the stairwell; Zep had the loudest drum sound on the planet at that time. In those days they weren’t yet building stone rooms and using compressed ambient mics to get that cannon-like effect. And we had all the shenanigans with the lead singer [Peter Gabriel] leaving the band, then rejoining – that put us back a bit – and we were virtually working in separate rooms. He was doing lyrics in one room, we were doing lyrics in the other, and then we would convene and try to knit the two together. It was quite difficult to do that.”
Yet this fraught working relationship within the band somehow developed into a double album. “If it had been a single, we would have recorded at Headley, but then the other place, Glaspant, was suggested. It was still being built, so we went from a derelict place that was once a haunted workhouse to another place that was not yet quite finished! So the recording process was fraught with difficulties. Eventually, we finished it off in London, at Island Studios. There were one or two hairy moments doing that album; it wasn’t an easy one to bring to fruition.”
It was a bold move to release a double album at that time, Hackett, along with Phil Collins, were still very much the new boys of the band. “The tone of it was really being set by the guys that had grown up together at school – Mike, Tony and Peter. So if Peter wanted to do a double album as his swansong with the band, that was something I could hardly object to.
“One thing I do concur with the rest of the guys is that most of us seem to think that it would have been stronger if it had just been a single album. But if it had been a single album I doubt whether we would have come up with the same choice of songs.”
Upon the album’s release in November 1974, Genesis began a long, gruelling tour of North America and Europe, featuring laser shows and Gabriel’s multiple theatrical costume changes. “I had no problem with that!” Steve remembers. “I was aware that we needed to put on a show. When I first joined the band, everyone was seated apart from Peter Gabriel, so it was left for him to be the show. We were like the pit orchestra and he had to be Nureyev meets Nijinsky.”
Gabriel, showman that he was, would be dressed in his Magog batwings outfit, consisting of a long velvet black cape and giant triangular headpiece. “When you’ve got a frontman who is prepared to hang upside down and sing – as he does even to this day! – prepared to crowdsurf, and all the rest… I’ve got great admiration and respect for that, but that’s for him, it’s not for me. My gymnastics are all on the fingers these days!” Cue some casual air guitar from Hackett, and a knowing smile.
During the early part of the tour, Gabriel announced to the other band members his intention to quit Genesis. “We were aware that Pete was going to leave,” admits Hackett. “He said, ‘I’ll do the album and the tour but then I’m going to leave.’ I think Tony Smith, our manager at the time, kept putting in extra dates so that Pete wouldn’t leave.
“We did nine months pretty much straight, touring that album. We were pretty green by the end of it,” the guitarist reflects with a sigh. “Pete very much believed in the album – he wanted it to be made into a film, and even recently, he wanted it to be made into a musical – and I’m celebrating a good half of it.”
Master of the acoustic, nylon and electric guitars, with a legendary sustain and tapping technique, Hackett is notable for refraining from fluffier jazz leanings favoured by so many other veteran guitarists. Latest album The Circus And The Nightwhale, released earlier this year, features his current touring band.
“I suspect they grew up listening to Genesis, so they know it backwards,” he says. “Just the rhythm section alone of Jonas Reingold and Craig Blundell are formidable. Jonas has this incredible sound on bass that just thunders – like a hundred tons of iron girders coming at you furiously fast – but he’s an amazing jazzer as well. He can play Bach on bass – in fact, I usually let him go off and play a Bach piece and he engages with the crowd. He’s an absolute star in his own right.”
The upcoming tour also showcases material from Steve’s later solo career. “We start off with three tracks from the new album – the opening track People Of The Smoke, and then it’s Circo Inferno and These Passing Clouds. They are all intense in their own way, with a large amount of instrumental work in each of those tracks and they work very well live. I’ve played them in the States and some parts of Europe, and those songs are being received by an audience as if they were old favourites, so I seem to be hitting the right note with it.”
Steve Hackett, Utilita Arena Cardiff, Fri 11 Oct.
Tickets: £49.50. Info: here
words COLIN PALMER