‘Steve Hackett Live in Glasgow’ or — Fully Embracing Your Nads?
Despite being one of my favourite musicians I had two concerns about seeing Steve Hackett live at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall last night. The first was whether or not I’d find the band’s singer, Nad Sylvan, too inadvertently hilarious to be able to properly concentrate. It’s not because he doesn’t have a great voice but more the fact that with his flowing mane of golden blonde hair and exhibitionist physicality he looks as though David Lee Roth had made a baby with a beautiful unicorn.
My second worry was that after seeing the current line-up of Yes the previous year and being crushingly disappointed by their limp, flaccid and, quite frankly, meaningless performance I was dreading Hackett might suffer from the same affliction now troubling many of his prog rock peers — i.e. sounding like an elderly, end-of-the-pier tribute act of their own career.
Fortunately not only was Nad an excellent vocalist but Hackett and his entire band were on absolute fire. “Bloody hell!” I found myself gasping in awe, “I wasn’t expecting them to be THIS good!”
The first set opened with three tracks from Hackett’s latest album. They’re decent enough numbers and work fine in the studio but hearing them live gave them a punch that really elevated them into something else. Ooh! This is sounding beefy!
The obligatory new stuff out of the way Hackett then careened into some of the most beloved pieces from his glorious back catalogue and the audience went bananas. ‘Every Days’ still has one of the most smiling-inducing guitar solos imaginable, and live it gleamed even more, followed by a performance of ‘Camino Royale’ that was so muscular I had no idea the song could possibly sound so dynamic.
The first half finished with a rendition of ‘Shadow of the Hierophant’ which I can only describe as “toweringly monumental”. Dear god, it drove the crowd totally insane to the extent it resulted in an extended standing ovation at the interval, something I have never witnessed before. Even Steve had to tell the audience that there was still another set to come and that wasn’t the climax of the evening.
As we sipped our interval drinks I admitted to my friends that I had been so overwhelmed by what I had just experienced that I was on the verge of bursting into tears… and I still had more to come.
The second set consisted of Hackett and his band — Roger King (keyboards), Jonas Reingold (bass, vocals), Rob Townsend (saxophone, flute), Amanda Lehmann (guitar, vocals), Craig Blundell (drums) and, of course, Nad (lead vocals) — performing a truncated version of ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ that I’m not sure even Genesis themselves could’ve matched for sheer gusto.
Goodness, what a fantastic evening! But it was far from finished as having wrapped up ‘The Lamb’ in style and then some the band then launched into ‘Dancing with the Moonlit Knight’, ‘The Cinema Show’ and ‘Firth of Fifth’ and if you thought the audience were already in a state of frenzied bliss then this drove them completely berserk.
The vibrancy, power and vitality were completely off the charts. At one point a woman started dancing in the aisles and I’m so glad I witnessed that with my own eyes because if you had told me that people had started dancing at a STEVE HACKETT gig I never would’ve believed you.
The concert culminated with ‘Los Endos’ morphing into a blistering performance of ‘Slogans’ before swinging back into the former’s ecstatic climax. The entire gig, interval included, was almost three hours long and not only did the energy of the evening never come close to dipping it only increased so by the end the audience were buzzing like hyperactive children.
I’ve been wanting to see Steve Hackett live for years and now I have I’m not waiting that long ever again because next time he’s playing I’m first in line for a ticket. Quite frankly, it was astonishing.
