Hot on the heels of his most successful solo tour ever, Steve Hackett has announced his Steve Hackett Genesis Revisited – Foxtrot at Fifty + Hackett Highlights tour for 2022. The tour will mark the 50th anniversary of the legendary Genesis album Foxtrot that, in 1972, was pivotal in establishing the band as a major force in British rock.
Hackett had joined Genesis in 1971, making his band debut on the Nursery Cryme album that enjoyed a greater commercial success in Europe than the UK. After extensive touring, the band were encouraged, by audience reactions, to further experiment with ever longer compositions and develop their ability to incorporate strong narratives. This, in turn, allowed frontman Peter Gabriel more opportunity to indulge in the theatrics that helped to raise the band’s profile.
“I think Foxtrot was a terrific achievement for Genesis at that time,” said Hackett. “I think there is not one weak track on the album, they all have their strong points and I’m really looking forward to doing the whole album live.”
Foxtrot was critically acclaimed and became the first Genesis album to make the UK album charts. The first track, the sci-fi influenced ‘Watcher Of The Skies’ became a fan favourite and perennial live set opener while ‘Get ‘Em Out By Friday’ was a cutting slice of social commentary about concrete tower blocks replacing aging slums, driven not by concern for communities but by the greed of developers.
Hackett was the lead writer of ‘Can-Utility And The Coastliners’, featuring some particularly strong musical ideas, and also contributed his classically-inspired solo piece ‘Horizons’. “The original version was a rough mix but there was something about it. A rough monitor mix can have things that something more considered won’t necessarily possess. I liked the sound of the rough mix, so we went with that.”
The album’s highlight was the 23-minute epic ‘Supper’s Ready’, the rock opus remaining a concert favourite and featured on Hackett’s recent Second’s Out tour. “’Supper’s Ready’ was a sojourn, an odyssey and something that goes down very, very well with audiences now,” Hackett noted, adding: “As part of Second’s Out I’ve been playing the whole of that again, it really has stood the test of time.
“We were a young, struggling band at that time. By the time we were doing Foxtrot, the band was becoming more ambitious. Foxtrot is a must for fans of the early Genesis work. Fifty years ago? It doesn’t feel like those ideas are fifty years old because it was-genre defining, rather than following trends. It still sounds current, now.”
The Steve Hackett Genesis Revisited – Foxtrot at Fifty + Hackett Highlights tour also promises more Genesis favourites and highlights from Hackett’s own extensive solo catalogue.
Tickets are available from 10am on Friday 10th December via myticket.co.uk.
