ON A DAY of sporting milestones for Wales, this evening of musical masterpieces most surely topped the lot.

Starting dead on 7.30pm, Genesis founder member Steve Hackett was straight into his three-hour set broken into two distinct sections of his Acolyte to Wolflight with Genesis Revisited gig.

The sizeable audience made up largely of men of a certain age who, you got the impression, had followed Hackett throughout his entire career and knew each chord, lyric and bass line.

Hackett was backed by a quite superb band of Roger King on keyboards elevated on stage left; Gary O’Toole, excellent on drums, elevated stage right; flaxen-haired and quite superb Roine Stolt, guitar and bass, and brilliantly talented Ron Townsend on sax, flute and keyboards.

We got a feel for Nad Sylvan’s vocals on the haunting Icarus Rising in the first set when Hackett performed numbers from his recent Wolflight, as well as early solo material. Nad really came into his own in the second half when close your eyes and Peter Gabriel could almost have been on stage.

The audience could hardly believe what we were hearing live on stage. Can-Utility and the Coastliners was followed by After the Ordeal and ageing lips mouthed and some quietly sang every line of Cinema Show. Firth of Fifth with Hackett’s sumptuous mid track solo was an absolute masterpiece. 

I’m not a fan of drum solos but I think I may have been converted after O’Toole’s encore effort almost blew the roof off the venue.

Performed in surround sound in the wonderful St David’s Hall this was a gig you never wanted to end.

David Barnes