The Royal Albert Hall is normally the home of the Classical Proms, especially the highly respected ‘Last Night at the Proms’ that is always a personal household favourite and marks the end of summer.

Fans of other music might count the performances by Cream in the 1960’s or Led Zeppelin the 1970’s and various comedians in the 1980’s such as Billy Connolly or Eric Clapton’s 24 nights in the early 1990’s amongst there musical highlights. Here Steve Hackett, and his hardworking highly evolved group of musicians, visionaries, and crew members have brought the Genesis Revisited experience to life is this a stand out concert for the 21st century?

This show was filmed on the 24th October 2013 at The Royal Albert Hall in London. Steve Hackett’s first foray into his revision history with Genesis was with the 1996 album Genesis Revisited that contained some very daring arrangements and interpretations of some well known Genesis songs. The album also explored hidden gems such as Deja vu; which was a partly finished song with Peter Gabriel from around Selling England by the Pound era; which Paul Carrack supplies beautiful vocals. Steve Hackett revisited Genesis again in 2012 and he employed a larger cast of musicians some with a link to Genesis others whose link to Steve was of friendship.

Steve assembled a high-grade cast of musicians including his long time drummer/percussionist, Gary O’Toole, and Roger King “King of the keyboards” and producer/engineer, along with Rob Townsend who has worked with Steve since 2001.

Steve then added the bassist extraordinaire Lee Pomeroy, who had covered Nick Beggs position when Steve was performing some dates in Japan initially but throughout the 2012 tour. Steve logically adopted Nad Sylvan on vocals who did such a remarkable service on Genesis Revisited II, the double revisited album.

This CD/DVD package is the second live release from the Genesis Revisited tour of 2013 but whilst this Royal Albert Hall live CD/DVD might share the same tour as Genesis Revisited Live At Hammersmith they are very different creatures.

Hammersmith has its special guests, but equally Royal Albert Hall has a different set of special guests. One noticeable differences is that the Albert Hall show seems more polished, more refined, and a stronger general release than Live At Hammersmith.

Visually Steve and the film crew make excellent use of the prestigious Royal Albert Hall, with the sound also being excellent. There are too many highlights to list individually but here is a list of some of the ones we could identify easily.

• Dance On A Volcano – Sounds more menacing the lightning and visuals take on a larger feel due to the size of the venue
• Gary O’Toole’s playing and singing during Fly On A Windshield and Broadway Melody Of 1974
• Carpet Crawlers – Ray Wilson shines as a guest vocalist – if I was a salamander I would scurry!
• I Know What I Like – Steve makes excellent use of Ray Wilson and Nad Sylvans vocal ranges an ideal pair!
• Amanda Lehmann’s beautiful voice on Ripples which envelops the song so well providing another depth
•  John Wetton sings with intense emotion during Firth Of Fifth (much like his crisp singing on the 1996 Revisited version)
• The inclusion of The Fountain Of Salamics
• Ronnie Stolt’s interesting playing on The Return Of The Giant Hogweed
• The visuals that come to life in this magnificent venue, with terrific use of the ‘smarties’ and lighting

These highlights, along with juggling the set list around, has provided a different live experience to the one that appeared on the Live at Hammersmith CD/DVD set. 

Differences in set lists between the two releases are as follows:

Songs that appeared on Live at Hammersmith

The Chamber Of 32 Doors, Shadow Of Hierophant, Blood On The Rooftops, Entangled, Eleventh Earl Of Mar.

These have been replaced on Live at The Royal Albert Hall with

Carpet Crawlers, The Return Of The Giant Hogweed, Horizons, Ripples, The Fountain Of Salmacis.

Steve Hackett, along with the vision of his wife Jo, have realised a wonderful experience for Genesis and Steve Hackett fans to immerse themselves in. Both CD/DVD sets are perfect records of the lighting and visual projections that draw the viewer to the concert experience except shy of actually being there on the night.

Further points:

The Samba addition to Los Endos, on Genesis Revisited (1996), took the song to a different dimension and it freshened it for me it would have been interesting if Steve had trialled this version.

Steve Hackett has taken Los Endos into his creative mind once again, he has actually managed to include Slogan’s from his 1980 album Defector, which works well in this concept – especially with such a professional band.

Nad Sylvan has found a confidence in his singing and performance that shines through on Live At The Royal Albert Hall. Ben Fenner’s Surround sound mix gives the viewer the feeling of being at the concert, with a good balance of instruments, crowd noise, and venue reverb.

Count the amount of channels of sound presented in the live experience we have found 4.1 some have said they have found 5.1, either way the surround sound mix is extremely well balanced and a great record of the night! As far as research shows, the DVD has a 4.1 Surround set up (a misprint on the DVD shows it as 5.1) and the Blu Ray has 5.1. As we didn’t have the Blu Ray copy at hand, we can not be sure. Either that or the DVD has had an encoding error, for us it does not mar the CD/DVD or Deluxe version. See the update for a better note on this.

Fantasy improvements: Suppers Ready would have been an interesting experiment had Ray Wilson and John Wetton had taken on the lead vocal duties in certain sections!

UPDATE:

In the last week (27th August 2014) I have acquired the Deluxe Boxset. Everything about it oozes quality from the informative text within the fantastically visual book that has a collage of photographs.

The DVD’s, 2 CD’s, and Blu Ray Disc are a treat but the biggest surprise was the fact that after another reviewer claimed that the Blu Ray was not in higher definition than the DVD, we found that they were mistaken. The High Definition both in terms of the picture was alarmingly sharper, brighter, vivid, and extenuated the details on the instruments. The overall Blu Ray is so revealing in detail and the DTS surround sound, which due to its higher bit rate offers a clearer palette of aural colour for the ears.

Back to the audio quickly. Both the Blu Ray and DVD are 4.1 mixes, and not a full Surround. The Blu Ray definitely confirms this. The issue for us on the DVD originally was that the sound was just not expansive enough and we were receiving an annoying centre channel buzz due to the lack of information going to the channel (on various different DVD players and a PS3). The Blu Ray however features no such annoying centre channel buzz, and actually, has a very pleasing sound. A centre channel would have still been good for a nice focal point for the singers, but either way, it generally is well mixed with some small ‘surround’ embellishments.

The extra features that appear on the 2nd DVD and also on the Blu Ray are informative in terms of the album by album review by Steve in his personal studio, and the backstage, before show, after show visual documentary is not only informative but at times highly amusing.

The most outrageous point about the deluxe boxset is its economic price, if this was any other band it would have been more expensive it almost feels like I have underpaid for it.
Steve brings a high quality item to market with a mid range price tag a real gentleman.

Track List

Disc: 1

1. Dance On A Volcano
2. Dancing with the Moonlit Knight
3. Fly on a Windshield
4. Broadway Melody of 1974
5. Carpet Crawlers
6. The Return Of The Giant Hogweed
7. The Musical Box
8. Horizons
9. Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers
10. In That Quiet Earth
11. Afterglow
12. I Know What I Like

 Disc: 2

1. Firth Of Fifth
2. Ripples
3. The Fountain Of Salmacis
4. Supper’s Ready
5. Watcher Of The Skies
6. Los Endos

DVD

1. Dance On A Volcano
2. Dancing with the Moonlit Knight
3. Fly on a Windshield
4. Broadway Melody of 1974
5. Carpet Crawlers
6. Return Of The Giant Hogweed
7. The Musical Box
8. Horizons
9. Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers
10. In That Quiet Earth
11. Afterglow
12. I Know What I Like
13. Firth Of Fifth
14. Ripples
15. The Fountain Of Salmacis
16. Supper’s Ready
17. Watcher Of The Skies
18. Los Endos

Standard 2CD/DVD digipak – an affordable edition of the show encapsulating the experience of the show.

Limited 2CD/2DVD/Blu-Ray art-book –  a deluxe version of the show featuring an art book, an additional DVD with bonus interview and other features along with a Blu Ray of the show.

Personnel

• Steve Hackett – Guitar/vocals
• Roger King – Keyboards
• Gary O’Toole – Drums, percussion and vocals
• Rob Townsend – Saxophone, Woodwind, Percussion, Vocals,Keyboards
• Lee Pomeroy – Bass,Bass pedals, Variax, Twelve String, Vocal
• Nad Sylvan – vocals/tambourine

 Featured Guests

• Amanda Lehmann
• Ray Wilson
• Ronnie Stolt
• John Wetton

Many thanks to Steve and Jo Hackett for their time and correspondence.

For more information about Steve Hackett

www.hackettsongs.com
www.facebook.com/pages/Steve-Hackett/123101228589
www.twitter.com/HackettOfficial

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Genesis Extended UK Tour Dates 2014

To see this wonderful Genesis Revisited experience in 2014 you can obtain a ticket from the following venue’s

Tue 21^st Oct                IPSWICH                              Regent Theatre                        01473 433 100

Wed 22^nd Oct             BRIGHTON                           Centre                                       0844 847 1515

Fri 24^th Oct                NOTTINGHAM                    Royal Concert Hall               0115 989 5555

Sat 25^th Oct               GLASGOW                              Clyde Auditorium                 0844 395 4000

Sun 26^th Oct              YORK                                        Barbican                               0844 854 2757

Tue 28^th Oct              SOUTHEND                            Cliffs Pavilion                     01702 351 135

Wed 29^th Oct             SOUTHAMPTON                   O2 Guildhall                       023 8063 2601

Thu 30^th Oct             CARDIFF                                  St David’s Hall                   02920 878 444

Sat 1^st Nov                 LONDON *                               Eventim Apollo                  0844 249 4300

Sun 2^nd Nov               SALFORD                                  The Lowry                          0843 208 6000

Mon 3^rd Nov             GUILDFORD                            Glive                                     0844 770 1797

Tue 4^th Nov               BIRMINGHAM                        Symphony Hall                 0121 345 0602

IMPORTANT:

Ticket prices for all venues except London are £29.50 and £27.50 all seated (except Guildford seated/standing) and London* £35 and £30.   24hr Ticket Hotline: 0844 338 0000 Online: BookingsDirect.com (Agency & credit card bookings subject to booking fee) Showtime for all shows is 7.30pm (plus support).  For full details on exclusive VIP packages to meet Steve before the shows, please see www.hackettsongs.com