Live Previews
Must-see gigs from Steve Hackett & Orchestra, The Treatment, Ash, Brian Downey’s Alive And Dangerous and Hogjaw. Plus full gig listings – find out who’s playing where and when.
“It still thrills me that John Lennon gave
interview an saying Genesis were among the bands
to he loved
listen to.”
The former Genesis guitarist previews eight dates of orchestral shows.
The guitarist continues to celebrate the legacy of his late, lamented former band, Genesis, this time accompanied by an orchestra. These eight UK dates will be performed with an orchestra, something you tried last year in America with a forty-one-piece as a one-off. Yeah, and it went very well with the Buffalo Symphonic. We’re not bringing them over, but we are using the conductor, Bradley Thachuk.
So which orchestra will you have with you? They’re called The Heart Of England. We started off with the idea of forty-one of them but it’s looking like there will be thirty-six.
What do the classical musicians add?
I’ve worked with quite a few, both in studios and on stage. I’m a bit of a classical groupie, really [laughs]. Orchestras really informed Genesis during the early days, though those parts were played on synths and Mellotrons. Doing it with the real thing really brings extra proportion and size.
Are you writing the scores?
It’s a mix and match. I worked with an Icelandic band called Todmobile, who did some really good orchestral scores of the Genesis songs. We had those stored. Bradley Thachuk and his brother Steve have come up with some arrangements for my solo stuff. You also have a new bassist, Jonas Reingold from the Flower Kings.
Jonas had worked with our singer, Nad [Sylvan], and he’s very, very good. From the first note of the first song – bam!
The set-lists will be a mix of solo material and Genesis greats. Is this the last lap for Genesis Revisited, which you began six years ago?
Well, I continue to make albums that chart, so on one level I’m rubbing shoulders with the likes of Madonna, but agents and promoters always request a Genesis show. So it’s a dilemma, especially because I’ve got a band that plays those songs exceptionally well. I’m proud of that era, and it still thrills me that in 1973 John Lennon gave an interview saying Genesis were among the bands he loved to listen to.
In Phil Collins’s autobiography he claims to have met you on the day you quit Genesis in 1977, and that you declined to tell him you were leaving, on the grounds that he was the one guy who may have persuaded you to stay. Yeah. The two of us were not to the manor born in the same way as the others, so there was a difference.
How hands-on were you in the compiling of Broken Skies – Outspread Wings (1984-2006), an art-rock book that includes six remastered albums and a whole host of out-takes? Fairly so. It’s my second boxed set and it covers my middle period. I wasn’t touring as ferociously back then, but it’s an era that means a lot to me.
Does its rerecording of the
GTR track When The Heart
Rules The Mind feature the original players, including Steve Howe?
No, Steve isn’t on it. There had been some talk of reuniting GTR but Steve wasn’t interested. So for this purpose Steve Rothery [of Marillion] plays guitar on it.
Is it true that you approached Brian May about joining GTR in that band’s latter stages?
I didn’t ask him about GTR, but we did talk about guitar combinations. We like each other’s music and we’re mates, and now and then we talk about doing something together, so let’s see.
Your latest album, The Night Siren, is now eighteen months old. Are you prepping something new?
Yeah. I’m taking another journey into the unfamiliar. Otherwise what’s the point? There are plenty of heavy metal heroes out there. DL