STEVE HACKETT - FOXTROT AT FIFTY + HACKETT HIGHLIGHTS: LIVE IN BRIGHTON (Blu-Ray out in September!)

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Thank you, Stupy. Very interesting. So, the Stereo Track from the Blu-ray reflects what we all hear in the Youtube videos from InsideOut. Blu-ray look and sound like Chris Lord-Alge nice mix without horrible Mastering by Ted Jensen. No idea why they mastered the CDs...
Yeah, why even bother putting the CD's in the package. They aren't required.
 
To me this is the best sounding of all the Hackett Blu-Rays to date and I have all of them plus all the DVD's of earlier concerts. No bloated bass and Steve's guitar is not buried in the mix. Everything is great. I have only watched the Foxtrot part. Not really that interested in the rest of it at this point.
 
Looks like we a have a good idea of what live release will be next. It was just announced that the next Hackett tour will focus on ...Lamb...

Still waiting for the Foxtrot release, though. Amazon U.S. has a delay on it.
 
Man, on the 6th playthrough of the Foxtrot part. This is just excellent. Nad does an admirable job trying to compete with the huge onslaught of sound but at times he almost gets buried during Supper Is Ready. The guitar solo at the closing of Supper Is Ready is just epic. I hope the next one is captured like this one and the same people are involved in the mixing.
 
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It's too bad that he is not doing the entire thing. When he did Wind and Wuthering I missed the tracks that he didn't perform.
I remember him being very negative about The Lamb, saying he felt useless during its making and didn't really get into it. So I'm surprised he's even focusing on it. Same thing with W&W, those songs he didn't do weren't songs he cared much for, but at least we got "Inside and Out" as a bonus.
STEVE: I was an innocent bystander on 'The Lamb'. It happened despite me, not with me. All the things that I'd managed to hold back on 'Selling England By The Pound' seemed to come back in full force here. The nightmarishly long sides - everything linked to everything else. I really felt it was very indulgent and couldn't quite get to grips with it or contribute something great in a guitar sense. I don't think Tony's ever done a finer album. But I did feel the amount of stuff I was managing to put across was painfully small.
 
I remember him being very negative about The Lamb, saying he felt useless during its making and didn't really get into it. So I'm surprised he's even focusing on it. Same thing with W&W, those songs he didn't do weren't songs he cared much for, but at least we got "Inside and Out" as a bonus.
I always go back to what I’ve read from artists of a certain vintage and how tours are easier to get promoter support these days when there’s a hook like playing a classic album.

No doubt Steve loves to revisit his past work, but I imagine there’s a financial incentive for him to do these tours rather than just solo-based tours with a few Genesis songs thrown in.
 
This appears to be the plan for 2024 Tour Lamb Highlights + Solo

Looking back, Lamb was a tumultuous period for the band. Peter's wife Jill was expecting with a difficult pregnancy so PG was racing back and forth to be with her and to also somehow finish writing this concept album at the same time. Steve learned that some of the guitar parts he had recorded were either mixed out or erased to make room for additional vocals. In his anger, we squeezed a wine glass so hard it broke and cut his hand badly, only adding to the undercurrent. To be recording a double length album and lose contributions would of course be frustrating. Peter announcing he was leaving the band mid-way through the tour in 1975 was icing on the cake. The Lamb itself is a flawed gem; more than a single album but not equally strong on all 4 sides.

I was fortunate enough to see The Musical Box (Genesis endorsed cover band from Canada) perform the Lamb in it's entirety a few years ago. It was wonderful in all the right places but my assessment is unchanged. I've seen them 4 times (recreating different tours, even a whole weekend in Montreal).

It was fortunate that Steve Hackett started recording his 1st solo album in 1975 as it gave the band (Mike & Phil) something to work on while they re-grouped after Peter's departure. Tony demurred so Steve had this one all to himself. Voyage of the Acolyte is a very strong album, too bad SW wasn't able to be supplied with the missing multi-tracks for the surround mix in the Charisma albums box.

Honestly, I give Steve full credit for being the member carrying the torch of expertly presenting the classic Genesis albums in live concert form for us. I praise Peter Gabriel for forging his own identity post-Genesis and his current success. He has little interest in the band's past. Tony, Mike and Phil successfully re-worked the band yet again after Steve's departure. they concentrate on their later work and toss in the occasional medley of the classic material to placate people like me. They've pulled off two reunion tours (the latter with Nicholas Collins on drums) and when they do these their online Genesis merch store briefly comes back to life, then goes dark again. So again, kudos to Steve Hackett for paying proper respect to these epic classic albums.

I just ordered the signed copy of the Foxtrot at 50 CD / Blu Ray set; forgot to earlier (created a 'waiting for' list). That's fine as we'll see the concert on 10/29 so I imagine watching this on a wind & wuthering day later on.
 
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I've just spent most of this afternoon watching and listening to this brilliant show, again.
Everything about it is superb apart from the lame surround mix.

To think that Steve is 73 and still touring like there's no tomorrow.

I cannot recommend this highly enough,folks

Even though the surround mix is disappointing.
 
This band is just absolutely wicked good! I think they'd still sound great on their worst low energy night. This is my favorite release from this group so far. More energy and more moments way above average for them than the last couple show releases. Best mix by a lot! Just really too bad it isn't a surround mix. The audience and ambience is in surround... It's one of those. But it's the best mix hands down out of the last few live set releases.

The band is just stunning playing this material with this level of perfection and balls! This one will get repeated listens.
 
Watched this Concert yesterday again.

Summarized:
Beautiful concert, filmed well.
Sound (5.1) is dynamic, sounds very good, but for what do I have rear speakers? Only for some reverb and applause?

The CDs are heavily brickwalled. The 2.0 on the BD isn't, fortunately. They could have saved the money for this CD mastering!
Mastering is mostly (not always, but very often) making it as loud as possible. Sad.
 
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