{"id":53443,"date":"2025-11-14T20:38:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/53443\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T20:38:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T20:38:06","slug":"guitar-great-steve-hackett-will-touch-on-full-career-at-oakland-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/53443\/","title":{"rendered":"Guitar great Steve Hackett will touch on full career at Oakland show"},"content":{"rendered":"

Along with Pink Floyd\u2019s David Gilmour<\/a>, Yes guitarist Steve Howe<\/a> and King Crimson architect Robert Fripp<\/a>, former Genesis member Steve Hackett is recognized as one of the most gifted six-string wizards to emerge during the 1970s heyday of progressive rock.<\/p>\n

Joining the rising British band fronted by theatrical lead singer Peter Gabriel in 1972, just months after Phil Collins took over the drum stool, Hackett became part of what would later be hailed as the group\u2019s classic \u201870s line-up alongside keyboard player Tony Banks and bassist\/guitarist Mike Rutherford.<\/p>\n

Starting with its third album \u201cNursery Cryme,\u201d this version of Genesis refined a mix of complex song structures, tricky time signatures and allegorical, character-driven storylines \u2014 often fleshed out onstage with Gabriel\u2019s increasingly elaborate costumes \u2014 that made the quintet one of prog rock\u2019s most unusual and revered acts. Hackett brought both groundbreaking technique (he was an early exponent of the finger-tapping style that Eddie Van Halen blew minds with later in the decade) and exquisitely melodic solos to the band\u2019s sound, establishing himself as one of the genre\u2019s guitar heroes. His contributions were central to subsequent Genesis releases \u201cFoxtrot,\u201d \u201cSelling England By the Pound\u201d and Gabriel\u2019s surreal double-LP swan song with Genesis in 1974, \u201cThe Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hackett departed for a solo career in 1977 after two more studio albums and the stellar concert document, \u201cSeconds Out.\u201d While his albums have run the gamut from instrumental guitar showcases to orchestral rock, he has become the one former member of Genesis to regularly revisit his prog-rock past, re-recording many of the band\u2019s \u201870s songs and featuring the classic material in live performances. Despite dealing with a bout of bronchial flu amid the East Coast leg of his current \u201cGenesis Greats, Lamb Highlights & Solo\u201d tour, Hackett recently gave up some precious bedrest to discuss his career and the latest remixed version of \u201cThe Lamb Lies Down\u201d from a Connecticut hotel room.<\/p>\n

The guitarist performs 8 p.m. Nov. 18 at the Fox Theater in Oakland. Tickets start at $56; go to apeconcerts.com.<\/p>\n

Q: I was listening to the new remix of \u201cThe Lamb,\u201d and it struck me how the bass and keyboards really dominate the opening title track before you become much more central to the rest of the album. Did the new mix reveal anything unexpected or forgotten to you when you listened to it?<\/p>\n

A: Yeah, there are several missing guitar parts, and I just accept that. That\u2019s the way it is if other people are going to do mixes. But for my money, the remix that was done, I think, in the \u201890s \u2014 the 5.1 version by Nick Davis \u2014 had many guitar parts that I thought I\u2019d never hear. I was very pleased to hear those. I\u2019ve been doing my version live, nine songs from \u201cThe Lamb Lies Down on Broadway,\u201d but then there\u2019s also the whole of \u201cSupper\u2019s Ready\u201d from Foxtrot, which is nearly half an hour long. Stuff that took up the whole side of an album back in the day. So I try to honor the past and celebrate the future. That\u2019s how I see it. Luckily, the new things have been equally well accepted, and I\u2019m very happy to do that. I don\u2019t want to just be a museum of (songs from) 50 years ago. I think it\u2019s important to do new things.<\/p>\n

Q: Is there a connection between revisiting the conceptual work of \u201cThe Lamb,\u201d and taking a more narrative focus with your most recent studio album, \u201cThe Circus and the Night Whale?\u201d<\/p>\n

A: There have been a number of albums all in quick succession. \u201cThe Circus and the Night Whale\u201d was ambitious for us with the band. There was a story, which is basically autobiographical. It also goes into areas that I would say are more symbolic. I was very proud of the album. I think it did very well. Like a number of albums that I\u2019ve done in recent years, that one, the live album that followed \u2014 \u201cLive Magic at Trading Boundaries\u201d \u2014 and \u201cThe Lamb Stands Up at the Royal Albert Hall,\u201d they all went to the top of the rock and metal charts in the U.K. So I\u2019m very proud of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Circus and the Night Whale\u201d was largely conceptual with a central character. In that way it parallels \u201cThe Lamb,\u201d but I think the differences are greater than the similarities, if I may say so. I think that some of \u201cThe Lamb\u201d \u2014 because (Gabriel) was writing the lyrics \u2014 you can hear at times that it\u2019s become autobiographical. When he\u2019s singing \u201cThe Chamber of 32 Doors,\u201d that idea of uncertainty about the future brought up some themes that he then explored with \u201cSolsbury Hill\u201d on his first solo record.<\/p>\n

The idea of breaking out of the comfort of the band, and whether he should. He wasn\u2019t sure, but he was a very big star by the time he\u2019d left us, and the band was gaining momentum the whole time. So you can divide the band up into two eras, the Gabriel era and the Collins era. Even though I stuck around for two more albums and a live one after Pete left, I started to work towards solo stuff. The idea of autonomy reared its head big time for me. I needed to be able to express myself.<\/p>\n

Q: Another regular point of discussion when you and your former bandmates talk about \u201cThe Lamb\u201d is how Rael\u2019s character pre-figured punk in a way. In fact, there\u2019s a recent interview on YouTube where Mike Rutherford is talking about that, and you deadpan, \u201cWe started punk rock.\u201d Even though musically there wasn\u2019t much to connect the album and what Genesis was doing to punk, it does seem like Peter\u2019s intensity portraying Rael, especially when he played the title song and \u201cBack in N.Y.C.\u201d during his early solo tours, bears that idea out.<\/p>\n

A: There is that. There\u2019s a lot of anger and the sort of ranting aspect of it. Of course, you could say that Genesis invented punk rock, or you could say any one of the punk bands invented it, but the term \u201cpunk\u201d goes back to Shakespeare. He used the term to describe someone who\u2019s a rubbishy person, apparently. So Shakespeare invented punk, and J.S. Bach invented tapping. That\u2019s how I see it.<\/p>\n

Q: There\u2019s another connection I didn\u2019t make until after seeing the Musical Box (tribute band) perform \u201cThe Lamb\u201d using the original slides Genesis used of period New York City street scenes. Rael, as a half Puerto Rican gang member and graffiti tagger, is exactly the kind of person that would be at the epicenter of another seismic transformation in the emergence of hip-hop in New York City right at that same time.<\/p>\n

A: I think what links them is the disaffected, dissatisfied youth aspect. I\u2019m sounding very analytical here, but if anything links them, it\u2019s probably that. But you could say look what we unleashed. Many of the bands who had been listening to us before that suddenly decided that we were on the dock to answer for our crimes. Not just nursery crimes, but all the rest. But you know, it was a very competitive time in music for a while there. You had to weather the idea that maybe you were regarded as terminally unhip. But if you stick around long enough, the competition fades into the background and you become something else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Along with Pink Floyd\u2019s David Gilmour, Yes guitarist Steve Howe and King Crimson architect Robert Fripp, former Genesis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2644,967,181,971,330,143,145,144,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-53443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-concerts","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-lifestyle","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-oakland","14":"tag-oakland-headlines","15":"tag-oakland-news","16":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}