Steve Hackett @ Kleinhans Music Hall, Buffalo, NY 10-5-25

One of the prog rock forefathers in Steve Hackett, made a return appearance in the WNY area this past Sunday night. This time Hackett is playing the legendary Kleinhans Music Hall. His 2025 band includes Rob Townsend on sax, flute, keys, etc., Nick D’Virgilio on drums, Jonas Reignhold on bass and guitar, Lalle Larason on keyboards and Nad Sylvan on vocals. This tour is to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the landmark album ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.’ This was only the 2nd night of the tour, so it was going to be interesting on how the band has worked the setlist and songs to this point.

The show was broken down into two sets. The 1^st set was about 55 minutes long which contained just his solo work. You saw very little of Sylvan as the songs performed had almost no vocals that he sang on. Either Hackett did lead vocals or they were instrumentals. The first 3 selections were off of one of Hackett’s latest offerings in ‘The Circus and the Nightwhale.’ Hackett went full circle to close out the solo set as he went all the way back to his debut solo album ‘Voyage of the Acolyte’ and played “Shadow of the Hierophant.” His solo set ran the gauntlet of his entire career.

After a 20-minute intermission, the celebration of the “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” started by playing the title track. Sylvan showed his vocal prowess on this song, and you can tell throughout the 2^nd set why he is the perfect choice for Hackett’s band. His vocal stylings and sound have a lot of similarities to the that of former Genesis vocalist Peter Garbriel. The first 9 songs were select choices off this iconic album. The gem of the second set was the rendition of the 25-minute song “Supper’s Ready.” Hackett talked about how this song unfortunately never saw the light of day for radio play, so he felt that playing live would do the song some justice. Well, I thought the musicianship of the entire band to pull this off was simply magical. I think the fans were very happy overall to see this played. They came out to do an encore of a few tracks that included the fan favorite “Firth of Fifth.”

Hackett loves coming to Buffalo and playing venues around the surrounding area. You can tell that with the strong showing in attendance (even with a Buffalo Bills football game going on simultaneously) goes over very well with Hackett and his band. I believe as long as that the fans keep coming out to see him, Hackett and his band will keep would keep coming back to see them too.

Setlist:

Set 1:

People of the Smoke

Circo Inferno

These Passing Clouds

The Devil’s Cathedral

Every Day

A Tower Struck Down

Basic Instincts

Camino Royale

Shadow of the Hierophant

Set 2: