Genesis guitarist brings ‘Lamb Lies Down’ to Montreal

Though perhaps less well-known than his Genesis bandmates Phil Collins or Peter Gabriel, Steven Hackett is heralded for his work in the band. (Steve Hackett)

In early 1975, Montreal music fans, specifically the CHOM-FM-listening types, were going crazy over a newly released album called The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

It was a creative masterpiece by British band Genesis at the top of their game that still holds its relevance half a century after its release - and it’s not escaping the current trend to re-master, re-package and re-release old music.

Except in this case, the re-release date has come and gone, and former guitarist Steve Hackett says he doesn’t expect the remastered album to come out this year, and maybe not even next year.

“It’s one of those things that I cannot control. I could never say to you, ‘Yes, I think it’ll come out by Christmas 2027,’ and I may still be wrong,” Hackett told CTV News. “This is the reason I have a solo career. I honour the early work, but I get extremely frustrated at the wheels moving incredibly slowly with this stuff.”

‘Anniversaries get missed’

Hackett, however, isn’t upset at the decision makers.

“Anniversaries get missed. It’s very Genesis. It’s very generous in Genesis, the band that I was with and left in 1977,” he said. “My God, you know, it’s heading for 50 years.”

While the band’s archivists and contributors may be fine-tuning the old tapes, unreleased demos and live versions for the box set, Hackett says he has nothing to do with the project itself.

“To be honest, I just figured that the more cooks there are, the slower it will be, and it’s already moving at the pace of an enabling snail, so I don’t know when any of this is going to be delivered, which I guess takes the thunder out of that,” he said.

Hackett isn’t bitter about it. He’s just realistic. After all, he left the band 48 years ago.

“I’m hands off. I tend to rubber-stamp things with Genesis so that they happen. I’ve found that usually when I suggest something creatively, it’s a sure sign it’s not going to happen. So, I have to use reverse psychology. It’s a band that I was involved with. I love the music. Don’t get me wrong; I’m sounding like a very unhappy man.”

In fact, Hackett says he is happy to take the album on tour with his solo band, with or without the reissues being available in music stores.

He is set to perform at Salle Wilfrid Pelletier on Oct. 9.

Hackett says he and his band won’t perform the whole album, but focus on its key moments.

“I’m doing nine songs from The Lamb. I’m doing the things that I think are the best, the best tunes, the most musical ones, things that stand alone, not dependent on the narrative of the story, just great tunes that within themselves, for instance, they’re most appropriate," he said.

Other epic Genesis tracks

Hackett says he chose to limit the tracks from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway so there would be enough time to play other fan favourites, such as Genesis’s show stopper and epic track Firth of Fifth.

It’s a 10-minute opus worshipped by prog-rock fans in general for touching all the bases: intricate time structures and multi-part tempos, wrapped around Tony Bank’s textured keyboards and Peter Gabriel’s grandiose storytelling.

“The most famous electric solo from Genesis from any era is the Firth of Fifth guitar solo from that, and it’s probably my most famous electric guitar moment. I can’t get away from that,” said Hackett.

There will be more, he says, including other signature songs like Supper’s Ready.

“Yeah, there’s some other Genesis classics and there’s solo material,” he says, including three tracks from Selling England by the Pound.

The lesser-known Genesis member

Hackett’s name doesn’t come up as often as his fellow former bandmates Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel, who both enjoyed massive commercial success on pop charts throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Even guitarist-bassist Mike Rutherford topped the charts with his project Mike and the Mechanics.

But Hackett says it’s his choice to stick to the progressive rock that made Genesis’s early material truly unique, though there is less commercial appeal.

Purists, however, point to Hackett as the true torch-carrier of the genre.

“I think Genesis fans are often divided into two camps. There are those who got on board Genesis from [1978 FM hit] Follow Me Follow You onwards,” says Hackett. “But there’s another camp of those who felt disenfranchised by the new direction.”

Formed in the late 1960s in England, the band would spend a decade without hits, yet fill arenas around the world and sell records by the truckload.

In the words of Hackett, their music was initially a mix of classical, orchestral and folk, which blended into a genre later called progressive rock.

Other bands like King Crimson, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, or Gentle Giant would also embrace the genre.

Genesis had the musical chops that would later lead its individual members into super-stardom.

Their singer was Peter Gabriel, their drummer Phil Collins, and the band was rounded out by other legends, including Mike Rutherford on bass and guitar, guitarist Anthony Philips, and keyboard player Tony Banks, with Steve Hackett joining for their breakthrough album Nursery Cryme.

“I think that quite a lot of Genesis fitted quite naturally into those ideas, that landscape, very, very broad. Genesis wasn’t just one band. It was a collection of individuals who managed to perhaps not compromise together, but find some level playing field where there was an agreement, sufficient truth in order to be able to come up with things that engaged all of us,” explains Hackett.

Their early albums, Trespass, Foxtrot, Nursery Cryme, Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, are staples in most classic rock album collections.

Hackett insists that back then, Genesis was a group effort.

Even The Lamb Lies Down…, where one assumes the storyline was strictly Peter Gabriel’s.

“There’s an assumption that it was all written by one guy, but it’s group-written. I think that’s why it was a double album because it expanded to fit everyone’s ideas,” he said.

The guitarist still recalls the chemistry that kept it all together.

“We used to say we felt we could join any two pieces of music together, provided the bridge passage was sufficiently good. (...) So, you do have to think like a writer, but at the same time, you know, concepts like writing work because it’s a very old-fashioned thing.”

Hackett has released roughly 30 solo albums since leaving Genesis, from the critical success of his initial release, Voyage of the Acolyte, in 1975, to The Circus and the Nightwhale, which came out in 2024.

The guitarist says he can’t picture himself retiring.

“I think it’s very rare that someone will voluntarily retire from music. Normally, there’s some kind of circumstance that brings it about; that might be family pressure, health, what have you,” he said. “You may have just addled your brains with too many substances, or whatever it is, but if music is the drug that gets you up in the morning, keeps you awake at night and pervades your dreams, you’ll have very little chance to stop.”