Steve Hackett - The Man, The Music download free

I was very fortunate to receive a good collection of prog this Christmas. I try to help family members with a wish list but even better, my wife, who has a history of buying prog for my birthdays and Christmases, gets progressive rock-related suggestions from Amazon. One present I wasn’t expecting was the Steve Hackett: The Man, The Music DVD (Wienerworld, 2015) which is an up-to-date documentary that includes material relating to Wolflight and ends with a dedication to Chris Squire who was interviewed for the release. It also boasts a design that dovetails with that for Hackett’s Genesis Revisited: Live at Hammersmith box set (InsideOut Music, 2013.) Filmed and directed by Matt Groom it includes some insights into the early Hackett family life but the parts that will be of most interest to fans are those that relate to the Genesis period and the subsequent solo (Hackett band) material. The man himself comes across as very thoughtful and very polite when he comes to discuss his former colleagues in Genesis. It may be that those interviews were conducted before the shoddy treatment he received at the hands of the Genesis: Together and Apart documentary aired in October 2014. Keyboard player Roger King features quite heavily because of the value of his long-term musical and production collaboration and there are other cameos from brother John Hackett, drummer Gary O’Toole, wind player Rob Townsend, guitarist Amanda Lehmann and inimitable bassist Nick Beggs. There are also discussions between Hackett and Steven Wilson and Hackett and Chris Squire. Footage from a concert at Leamington Spa is very well recorded and it would be interesting to know if there was sufficient material from that gig for a full DVD release. Overall, The Man, The Music is a well balanced piece of work covering all of Hackett’s output, his personal thoughts, his guitar technique and with some interesting input from collaborators and family. I’d recommend it for any Hackett fan.