Hackett, Steve (September 2003)


Date of Performance: September 27, 2003
Venue: 013, Tilburg, NL

Steve Hackett Band

Steve Hackett (photo: © 2003 John Bollenberg)Exactly on drummer Gary O'Toole's birthday, Steve Hackett's European tour started at the O13 venue in Tilburg, Holland. To be correct, we have to talk about the Steve Hackett Band here, because after years of purely solo concerts, Steve is back on the road with a complete band. In fact, it's exactly the same line-up he used on his latest studio album To Watch The Storms, that being Gary O'Toole on drums, Roger King on keyboards, Terry Gregory on bass and Rob Townsend on saxophone, flute and thin whistle. Whilst most of his musicians have been brought up on jazz, there's little room for them to improvise, as everything is based around the immortal guitar parts of our beloved friend Steve Hackett.

Steve Hackett (photo: © 2003 John Bollenberg)The concert began in the same vein as the Live In Buenos Aires DVD, thus with "The Floating Seventh" and "Mechanical Bride." The strobe lights that accompanied the latter were the visual attraction of the entire evening, because if one thing was lacking from this otherwise outstanding concert, it had to be the lack of anything visual. Hackett solo certainly isn't the same as Hackett being part of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour where the music almost became of minor importance when compared to the visuals. Steve climbed on a high chair when waiting for that very important first chord as played by Roger King, launching "Watcher Of The Skies" into the enthusiastic crowd. It was nice to see that Steve has no problem integrating his past back-to-back with his own material. And that solo material spanned his entire career, with of course the necessary amount of new material from his latest album To Watch The Storms. Maybe it was because Inside Out label boss Thomas Waber was present that Steve was taking extra care of his PR?

Roger King (photo: © 2003 John Bollenberg)After a good half hour, the band left the stage, leaving a desolate Hackett, who in the meantime had an acoustic guitar strapped around his shoulders. It was time to enjoy the intimate resting point of the set, which we all immensely enjoyed. Steve kicked it all off with a short rendition of "Classical Gas" before turning towards his well-known pieces. Roger King and saxophone player Rob Townsend got back on stage to perform "Walking Away From Rainbows." I didn't write down every single song they played, but in my mind the setlist has to come close to what's on offer on the Live In Buenos Aires DVD. The two hour long show most certainly included "Vampyre With A Healthy Appetite," "A Tower Struck Down," "Darktown," "Camino Royale," "Horizons" and "Los Endos." I also recognized the same black shirt as worn by Steve during the recording for the Hungarian Horizons DVD. Economical savings in progland? I thought these savings could be noticed at the merchandise stall where only a selection of Steve's recorded output was on sale. Terry Gregory (photo: © 2003 John Bollenberg)Manager Billy Budis later informed me that the T-shirts and programmes had not been delivered in time and would only be available from the dates in England onwards. However people attending the shows in Holland on the 27th and 28th of September, as well as everybody else of course, could always get their hands on the new merchandise through Steve's official website, which can be reached at www.stevehackett.com [The URL is now www.hackettsongs.com... and I don't know if the tour merch is still available... ed. Sep 2011].

Gary O'Toole (photo: © 2003 John Bollenberg)Just before I parked my car, I overtook a truck with the name Heijboer written on it. Automatically I thought of Dick Heijboer, keyboard player with Dutch band Cliffhanger. Call it telepathy but who was standing right in front of the stage? Right. Mister Dick Heijboer himself. "I've been working on my new album, which is the first for the No-Vox project. As the name reveals, this will be an all instrumental album on which I have worked with all of the other ex-Cliffhanger members plus an extra guitar player. Needless to say the music gets close to that of Cliffhanger so all of the 'old' fans will most certainly enjoy No-Vox whilst of course we all hope to also reach a lot of new fans as well."

Rob Townsend (photo: © 2003 John Bollenberg) In all, the Hackett concert was once again the place to be to not only enjoy a good slice of music but also see some familiar faces again. iO Pages writer Antonie Deelen was there as well as Milly Kusmic. Milly launched her very own Eddie Jobson fanclub years ago, which sadly is now defunct. "For about a year I no longer have contact with Eddie at all," she says. "All I know is that the UK reunion album will never happen whilst Eddie is concentrating more and more on writing scores for TV-music and films." So money has taken over from creativity once again, which is something we don't have to fear in the Steve Hackett camp. After a successful start, this tour will bring Hackett and band to England, Sweden, Germany, Belgium and Poland. No doubt thousands of people will be treated to a night to remember served by one of the world's leading guitarists!

Steve Hackett (photos: © 2003 John Bollenberg)


Added: September 28th 2003
Reviewer: John "Bobo" Bollenberg

Artist website: www.hackettsongs.com
Hits: 2441
Language: english
  

[ Back to Live Reviews Index | Post Comment ]