Steve Hackett
Royal Albert Hall, London

IN DRAB early 1970s Britain as the left-wing optimism of the late ’60s slipped away, Genesis captured the zeitgeist as prog-rock pioneers, crafting intricate and sometimes sinister depictions of a land where faded Victorian grandeur lingered and yet a strange new world of brutal social realities was taking hold.

With Peter Gabriel as frontman — and tonight’s star at the Royal Albert Hall, Steve Hackett on lead guitar — the group produced an album a year from 1969 to 1974.

The work becoming progressively less whimsical and darker, culminating in the magnum opus to alienation The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Gabriel’s last album with the group, and the focus of Hackett’s current tour.