In bed with GENESIS and other strange stories…

Locked down in his London home, Steve Hackett is missing the roar of the crowd… if not the smell of the proverbial greasepaint. And when talking to Prog over a temperamental phone line about one particular show, he still has fond memories. It was the last time he trod the boards alongside all four fellow members of Genesis’ classic line-up.

The occasion was October 2, 1982 when, in order to raise money to bail out the seriously debt-stricken WOMAD festival, the event’s curator Peter Gabriel asked his old bandmates to reform for a benefit show.

“It was done for all the right reasons,” says Hackett, “and I was very happy to be a part of it. And apart from my own role in it [he didn’t have time to rehearse, having rushed back to the UK from Brazil, but came on to play the encore], how lovely to see Genesis playing Solsbury Hill and stuff like that, as well as all the rest of the old material.”

His new book recounts how, afterwards, “Pete broke into Auld Lang Syne as we all linked arms. No stiff upper lips that night!”

These fond sentiments continue when the 70-year-old talks about the subsequent friendly relations that continued with his former bandmates. “Not long after that I did a benefit gig for Tadworth Court, a children’s hospital, and Peter and Mike both said they would like to be part of that, so we did get these partial reunions, coming together for all the right reasons, and it was nice to play each other’s songs… even for five seconds.”

These episodes are also referenced where his attitude to the band, and the musicians that helped make him famous, is consistently magnanimous and forgiving. It contradicts the perception in some quarters that he doesn’t get on with Messrs Banks, Rutherford and Collins, and still holds historical grievances.