ONCE ABOVE A TIME

This is the only concert I've seen from Hackett, so it really was a lovely experience for me. Like many of us here, I grew up into prog with classic acts such as Genesis, and Steve Hackett was already back then my favourite of the numerous gone solo -artists in the whole genre (another was, surprise surprise, Peter Gabriel, but that's another story). This all means that watching this DVD shot in Budapest gave me nostalgic vibes. And anyone can guess which tracks had the biggest dose of nostalgia: 'Blood on the Rooftops', one of my fave Genesis songs, is sung here succesfully by the drummer Gary O'Toole; 'Firth of Fifth' (the highlight of Selling England by the Pound) is abbreviated into an instrumental but the superb guitar solo is alone worth it. Also the Lamb-track 'Fly on a Windshield' concentrates into the powerful vocal-less part of the song. The concert is ended by the perennial Genesis instrumental, 'Los Endos' from Trick of the Tail, and Hackett's band does as great job as Collins & co. under the name of Genesis.

Naturally Hackett's solo material offers many nostalgic highlights as well. These include (all instrumental) 'Ace of Wands', 'Hammer in the Sand', 'Please Don't Touch', 'Clocks' and 'Spectral Mornings'. Very few songs with vocals are chosen from the early albums - and of course also 'Everyday' has its emphasis in the fantastic long solo. This feature is a minor let-down. I would have welcomed some more old songs, and why not for O'Toole to sing. The newer (more vocal-oriented) stuff didn't impress me much, and the 'Brand New' chorus is quite an irritating choice to start playing at the root menu. But on the whole the selection is fine and covers a large part of Hackett's discography.

The repertoire of acoustic nature - where Hackett has done wonderful music - is missing, as this concert is undisputedly a BAND concert. On the keyboards is Roger King (the main collaborator on albums such as Darktown); a plenty of flutes, plus slightly less saxophone, is played by Rob Townsend. Each player give their best. The direction and lightning are good too. In a word, recommended!