A step back in time

© Simon Poulter 2022

In 1978 Genesis had a hit with the love song Follow You, Follow Me, which marked a sea change in their concert clientelle. At a stroke, the band have noted, there were exponentially more women at their gigs. For the previous ten years, they’d been mostly patronised - again in their words - by men wearing army surplus greatcoats and carrying notebooks in which to record their thoughts about the noodly progressive rock they’d come to consume.

From that moment, Genesis would go on to become one of the biggest pop-rock bands in the world, still rooted in the progressive genre, but with shorter, MTV-friendly songs leading their repertoire. Steve Hackett, who until 1977 had been the band’s highly innovative lead guitarist (he invented the ‘tapping’ technique later made famous by Eddie van Halen and numerous other long-haired headbanging axemen), had left to pursue a solo career, just before this transition in the band’s fortunes. And, yet, for those still attached to the band’s arguably most novel era - with Peter Gabriel as its frontman, replete with his costumes, characters and penchant for lyrical theatricality - Hackett continues to keep the flame alive.

© Simon Poulter 2022

Which is why the crowd queuing outside the Eventim Apollo (the venue better known to old heads like me as Hammersmith Odeon), appeared to be 50 year-aged versions of those earnest young men in their army greatcoats. Paunches were in evidence, while some of those who still had hair had it tied in ponytails, despite expanding bald patches. This meant invariably finding yourself standing next to someone looking exactly like The Simpsons’ Comic Book Man. I do say this from a point of smugness at having a full head of hair.

Once inside, however, with the lights down, such cosmetics count for nothing. Hackett and his band - which includes longstanding keyboard stalwart Roger King, second guitarist Amanda Lehmann, bassist Jonas Reingold, flautist/saxophonist Rob Townsend and drummer Craig Blundell - launched into a first half of songs from Hackett’s early solo ventures, such as Ace Of Wands, The Devil’s Cathedral, Spectral Mornings and Every Day. All very good, but it was, I suspect, the second act of the evening that most punters had come to hear - the 1972 Genesis album Foxtrot performed in its entirety.

Being only 5 at the time it came out, I would have missed the original tour for this album, which included Gabriel’s notorious (and, to his bandmates’ surprise) appearance in Dublin wearing a scarlet dress and a fox’s head (a literal representation of the Foxtrot album cover), commencing the costuming that would become the hallmark of his time as Genesis frontman until his departure in 1975. So it would be fair to say that my interest last night at the Apollo/Odeon was to experience something of the magic of an album that, while not changing the band’s financial fortunes, is still held in the hearts of fans as being one of considerable virtuosity, with a still-young band of gifted musicians writing complex songs about complex subjects.

© Simon Poulter 2022

Opening with Watcher Of The Skies, a tribute to an Arthur C. Clarke novel with a bit of Holst’s The Planets thown in, Hackett introduces his vocalist Nad Sylvan, the gloriously eccentric Swedish singer who, vocally sits between Gabriel and his successor, Phil Collins, but despite his long blond Scandi hair and somewhat theatrical mannerisms, blends into the band canvas, rather trying to take centre stage, as Gabriel would have done in 1975. 

Foxtrot’s first side is worked through in sequence, including the prescient social commentary of Get ’Em Out By Friday (a somewhat dystopian Gabriel song about a 70s newtown in which the idea is floated to have residents genetically shortened so that they fit smaller homes in order to build more of them). There is, too, Can-Utility And The Coastliners, a rare early Hackett composition, losely based on the story of King Canute who, you might remember, ordered the sea to be turned back in response to lickspittle sycophancy, something rock bands will know a thing about. 

To replicate the flip from Side 1 to Side 2 of Foxtrot, there is a mini interval, after which Hackett is provided with a classical guitar and a stool. Performing alone, Hackett plays Horizons, a beautiful, baroque instrumental which, in Hammersmith, underlines Hackett’s status as an under-appreciated classical guitarist (he has produced several albums of classical playing, alongside his rock releases). Faithfully following the album’s track listing, it’s a precursor to one of the most adventurous pieces of music any band has ever pulled off: Supper’s Ready. 

No doubt part-inspired - or at least encouraged - by the 16-minute, eight-song closing medley on The Beatles’ Abbey Road, over the course of seven parts Supper’s Ready romps through a variety of time signatures and themes, starting with the ghostly apparition Gabriel claimed to have seen, through the Lewis Carrroll-esque whimsy of Willow Farm, to the epic conclusion of  As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs (Aching Men's Feet), with its biblical reference to “a new Jerusalem”. Perhaps, on the original record, it appeared more as a collection of songs, but hearing the enture 23-minute suite performed live for the first time in my lifetime, there is an added power to the song that not even the rendition on the imperious live album Seconds Out (during the mixing of which Hackett quit the band) captured.

Many, many years ago, for only my second live review for the NME I saw Sade at the Royal Albert Hall, and was struck by the somewhat clinical, sterile recreation of the Diamond Life album that had propelled her to stardum. Live performances work best when there is some reinvention, either to mitigate the inability to recreate complex arrangements created in the studio, or simply to indulge the artist’s whimsy, and introduce some riffing. Hackett has no need for either. With a piece as intricate as Supper’s Ready - and indeed the entire Foxtrot album - there was no need for embelishment.

© Simon Poulter 2022

This applied, too, to Firth Of Fifth, the grandiose epic on Selling England By The Pound that opens with an extended piano solo - played by Tony Banks on the original, and here faithfully and expertly recreated by King - before the song opens out, heading towards its somewhat legendary guitar solo. I once made a tit of myself when interviewing Hackett, in which I told him that, as a 13-year-old, I’d learned to play the solo, note-for-note, on my Spanish guitar. He was suitably unimpressed. It is still one of the greatest rock guitar solos of all time, though usually criminally overlooked by Jimmy Page’s on Stairway To Heaven, or David Gilmour’s on Comfortably Numb.

Solos are, of course, one of the nadirs of rock concerts. This Is Spinal Tap captured the indulgent absurdity of it, and there is a taste of this with an extended bass solo by Reingold earlier in the show. Blundell introduces the final song of the night with an elongated workout on the drums, but I’ll give him that for two reasons: 1) Craig is a thoroughly decent bloke who recorded a video of encouragement for a friend of mine after she was caught up in the 2015 Bataclan attack and took up drumming as a coping mechanism; and 2) Collins and his co-drummers (Chester Thompson and, briefly, Bill Bruford) would perform a drum duet as a prelude to Los Endos, the closing song of the Trick Of The Tail album whenever it was played live. And thus, Los Endos closes the evening with Hackett and Co in all its grandeur.

I’ve often maintained Trick Of The Tail and Wind & Wuthering, the albums that bore Hackett’s final studio contributions to Genesis, are two of the band’s best, bridging the lyrical and musical flights of fancy of the Gabriel era, and predating the pop orientation that Collins, Banks and Mike Rutherford as a trio went for in the 80s. There have been claims that Hackett’s contribution to the band, over the six albums in as many years, has been diminished. Part of this maybe due to the dominance of writing by Gabriel, Banks and Rutherford, and then the perceived commercial success that Collins’ higher profile led to, long after Hackett had left. But listening back to the albums he played on, his guitar work plays a much bigger role in the soundstage than is ever given credit for. 

In Hammersmith last night, we were given a highly enjoyable reminder. His solo material notwithstanding, I suspect the majority of last night’s punters were there for a trip down Memory Lane. And they would have been richly rewarded. Compared to the disappointing final experience of Genesis, earlier this year at London’s O2 Arena, this felt like the real deal. A wallow, yes, but a thoroughly enjoyable, comfort food-for-the-ears indulgence, provided authentically by the original purveyor. 

Good Evening, Hammersmith!

“It’s great to be here! It’s great to be anywhere!” is Keith Richards' customary wry introduction to Happy, the single song he gets to front at Rolling Stones gigs. It’s the phrase that entered my mind as soon as we exited the Tube station and saw people thronging to the grand old theatre that I still regard as the Hammersmith Odeon, but now goes by the commercial name Eventim Apollo (and, convolutedly, at various times in its 90-year history, the Gaumont Palace, Labatt’s Apollo, Hammersmith Apollo, Carling Apollo Hammersmith and the HMV Hammersmith Apollo). Because it was great to be out, for one, but also great to be at a gig again, my first since...God knows when. Actually, I can tell you: December 2019. Presumably, then, no one outside Wuhan had heard of  “the thing”, as Guy Garvey refers obliquely to it, drawing attention to the fact that, for the vast majority of the three-and-a-half thousand punters assembled for Elbow’s repeatedly-postponed return to the Hammersmith [Insert Name Here], this will be a unique occasion.

“Sorry we’re late,” he quips, once headline proceedings have commenced (as he probably begins every night of a tour already into its final third). He likes to get underway with an audience-softening zinger, and has used this gag before, but tonight there’s an obvious poignancy to it. Like every other UK venue Elbow are appearing at, the audience is tentative, cautiously stepping into the concert experience and its traditions with the added reserve of not fully knowing what the etiquette is - mask on or off? 

It is, for many, a first night out in months, with habitual gig-goers having to juggle suddenly clashing shows, with rescheduled dates appearing on calendars like planes in a holding pattern for Heathrow. Before Elbow take to the stage there is polite observance for the support, the Suzanne Vega-ish American, Jessica Hoop, followed by Peter Alexander Jobson of longstanding Elbow mates and fellow Lancastrians, I Am Kloot. Jobson is as jocular as Hoop is winsome, but it serves the correct purpose of a support set in these times to ease the audience into the gig experience once more. Even then, Elbow’s launching into Dexter + Sinister, from 2019’s Giants Of All Sizes, comes as an assault on the eyes as much as the ears, with bright, white staccato strobes pulsing, piercingly, shocking sensorial systems belonging to human pit ponies that have spent the better part of the last 18 months hunched over laptops and smartphones in the permanent half-light of WFH.

It is the start of a two-hour reminder that Elbow are one of the UK’s best live acts, but while they are clearly comfortable in the grand, but modestly-sized interior of the Apollo (a venue they have appeared at on many occasions), you are, very early, reminded of their appeal - the “soaring” anthems that have become associated with the warmth and wide-open communal singing of outdoor summer festivals, rather than a Depression-era cinema next to the M4 flyover in West London. 

Garvey is the focal point, but he performs with an avuncularity that is a rarity in rock, not consciously trying to outshine his bandmates, but applying his cuddly bear-like frame and warm humour, to immediately bring the crowd onside. He projects an everyman charm, the loveable mate you’d be just as happy in the company of down the pub as in front of you on stage. It’s an engaging nature that comes across regardless of whether he’s addressing a radio audience, guest starring in Peter Kay’s Car Share, or performing before tens of thousands at Pilton Farm. He is, obviously, Elbow’s vocal representation, but more than just its singer and co-songwriter, he maintains the geniality of a band that produces compelling heartfelt songs without the aggravating pretentiousness of Coldplay, a quartet of similar length of service (“We've been going almost 30 years,” Garvey declares to gasps).

There is, too, a distinctive northerness to Elbow’s music. It’s hard to properly describe, but it’s a north-western ambience accentuated by Garvey’s drawling Bury vowels, unsullied by life outside the region. Theirs is also a music that defies definition, which probably puts them in the “prog” category (Garvey is a noted fan of Peter Gabriel, and Elbow’s first album was cut at Gabriel’s Real World Studios), which is fine by me. You do, though, hear strains of other, equally indefinable influences, like Talk Talk and even the Velvet Underground (especially on Kindling, which appears midway through the set). Because, as these two hours in Hammersmith demonstrate, there’s an intricacy and complexity to Elbow’s music and lyrics, but also a hymn-like quality. Barely a song can’t be described as “anthemic”, a cliché I know, but this is why Elbow are so intrinsically suited to the open space of the festival. Here, you also acknowledge just how good Garvey’s voice is, always at the top of expellation without ever sounding strained. Their songs might bear a lyrical intricacy but the instrumentation of guitarist Mark Potter and his keyboard-playing brother Craig, along with bassist Pete Turner and touring drummer Alex Reeves, plus a couple of strings players (and, I should add, a stageside signer for the hearing impaired, Katie Fenwick - a first for me at a gig - who, to her credit, had learned the lyrics of all three acts) spreads economically across the scope of the band’s often emotionally wrought songs.

Alas, Katie was too far from my Row U eyrie to be of any benefit in articulating Garvey’s wonderfully poetic lyrics, but there was so much more going on in a 17-song set drawn from seven of Elbow’s eight albums released to date, plus the ‘bonus’ of the delightful What I Am Without You, a fairground Wurtlitzer joy of a number, reminiscent in places of Clive Dunn’s Grandad (and from the forthcoming ninth album Flying Dream 1), which was sandwiched by one of their earliest, The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver, and most recent, White Noise White Heat. There were the obligatory singalongs, an inescapable aspect of an Elbow show, starting early with Mirrorball, along with the arm-sailing Magnificent (She Says) and Grounds For Divorce (with Garvey orchestrating a three-part crowd harmony as warm-up to the song's “wooah-woah” chorus), all leading up to the festival behemoth that is One Day Like This. It is, always has, and forever will be a communal pile-in event in its own right, and even if you don’t know all the words, it’s impossible - even for the most ingrained curmudgeon - not to participate. One Day is one of those songs that other acts must be truly envious of, such is its emphatic closing-number nature, but it provides not only the show’s conclusion, but a final paragraph on the nature of the Elbow canon. The strings, too, made me wonder that it must surely only be a matter of time before Garvey & Co get the nod from the Bond producers to produce a theme.

The term ‘emotional’ when applied to pop music can often mean durge or, at risk of enraging those who feel otherwise, Adele’s first couple of albums, at least. Elbow transcend that with intelligence and music that commands the ear, all wrapped in the pleasing personality that is the easy-going frontman, so lacking in commonly-found rock star traits. As a return to gigging goes, we probably couldn't have done any better.

Misty Mountain Hop: Father John Misty at the Eventim Apollo

© Simon Poulter 2017

It's a mark of my age that, on crossing Hammersmith Broadway, I could only think of the venue for this congregation for Father John Misty as the "Hammersmith Odeon". This is despite it having gone through numerous changes of sponsor over the last 30-odd years: Labatt's Apollo, Hammersmith Apollo, Carling Apollo, HMV Hammersmith Apollo and latterly the Eventim Apollo. But whomever's name sits above that distinctive, Grade-II listed art deco frontispiece, 'Hammy Odeon' will forever be one of London's most celebrated concert venues, thanks in part to being where Bruce Springsteen made his UK live debut in 1975, where Bowie ended the Ziggy Stardust tour two years before, and being venue of numerous live albums, most famously Motörhead's legendary No Sleep 'til Hammersmith.

It is, then, with this significant '70s rock heritage that in should roll Misty, the current incarnation of Josh Tillman, and the persona of a louche '70s rock star, plying wry, heartfelt folk-rock as if straight from West Hollywood's very own Troubadour. Tillman is blessed with all the accoutrements of the LA Canyon Cowboy, with great, long rock god hair, a magnificent beard, and a dry, cynical humour, all redolent of Billy Crudup’s Russell Hammond in Almost Famous. On top of this, he has a wonderful voice, melodic talent and stage presence to make Springsteen and indeed Jagger look like shrinking violets.

Now, re-read those musical reference points again: it’s no surprise that the Misty ‘character’ is, essentially, a distillation of all that made 1970s rock stardom what it was. That Tillman pirouettes and prances like Jagger, and assembled a huge stage band with the same attention to layered detail as Springsteen, feeds that brew. Throw in that voice - oh so similar to Elton John's in his 'classic' period (essentially, from Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across The Water through to Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy), and the strength of his deeply personal, cynical songwriting and you have a compelling live proposition.

And thus it proved to be. With three albums as Misty behind him, Tillman had 24 songs drawn from all three, opening up with the first four tracks in sequence from this year's brilliant Pure Comedy. Despite its title, it's an album of serious topics and thinking, taking broad, sweeping shots at the state of the world, from politics and religion to celebrity culture, subjects that Tillman has found outlets to comment on elsewhere, but in his stage delivery, actually fuel the intensity of it. Opening with Pure Comedy, and just Tillman and a piano, the song builds to the full might of what he, essentially, has on stage with him, a small orchestra, to play through Total Entertainment Forever, Things It Would Have Been Helpful To Know Before The Revolution and Ballad Of The Dying Man.

If his song titles are long, there is a paradox to it, since Tillman doesn't engage in a great deal of audience badinage (save for a few sharp retorts to noisy dickheads clearly experiencing alcohol for the first time, and one over-enthusiastic stage crasher removed by security - "I didn't know folk-rock could get you wild"). But that doesn't diminish his stage presence, with even the stage layout designed to create a wide aisle down which Misty could leap and twist and stretch when not at the microphone, like some crazed evangelical preacher (Tillman was raised in a strong, Pentecostal family on the outskirts of Washington DC), even falling his knees, James Brown-style, a couple of times. Together with a lot of strong backlighting and dry ice, very often Misty himself was, well, misty - obscured in silhouette. This may not have gone down well with the adoring female contingent in the audience, not that he would probably care that much, since the cult of celebrity is one of Tillman's many targets for barbs (along with music bloggers, so I'd better be careful...).

© Simon Poulter 2017

For all of Tillman's individual theatrics, this was a show somewhat devoid of it. A confetti burst after just the third song seemed oddly out of place - a finale stunt at best - and Tillman made a joke of it, though one would have thought that pyrotechnics would have been worked out at the time the stage show was being conceived. It was either an odd stunt, or an odd idea of when to bring levity to the show. On this basis, and Tillman's lyrics not withstanding, you could conclude that this was a excursion into muso humour. And while the show was [thankfully] light on rock and roll stuntery (save for Tillman tossing his guitar, somewhat riskily, to his guitar tech during a lively version of Nothing Good Ever Happens At The Goddamn Thirsty Crow) you couldn't help walking out having felt that you'd witnessed - or even experienced - a true spectacle. The Elton John/folk/rock/country reference points may provide a central guideline to what you expect from Father John Misty, but there is plenty of space for other things between the cracks and around the edges, such as the shuddering, pounding electronica-infused True Affection, as well as the singalong pop of I Love You, Honeybear, title track of Tillman's second Misty album.

From start to finish, via the ebb and flow of confessional lyric and solid country rock, this was a knowing presentation of an artist confident in his skin and confident of his own capabilities. Throughout, his voice remained magnificent, one of delightful purity. The former R. Dwight of Pinner might be one point of reference, but the tones of Jackson Browne or Niels Lofgren also come to mind.

As he reached the finale, with The Ideal Husband, it was impossible not to think that Tillman/Misty is well on his way to join the ranks of the other famed alumni of the Hammersmith 'Your Sponsor's Name Here' Odeon. If I had one reservation, it's that Tillman can come across as being somewhat aloof. But, then, isn't that how a proper rock star should be?