Music N' Other Drugs

While the majority of what comes across my feed these days does little to pique my interest, I did see a meme recently that served as a cool conversation starter. Its goal was to find out what concert you would attend if the flux capacitor existed to make time travel possible, which, for me, led to a laundry list of candidates before arriving at one particular date in Buffalo history.

On Dec. 18, 1974, Genesis played “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” in its entirety at the New Century Theatre and the prospect of experiencing the majesty of that album less than a month after its release was too tantalizing to ignore. There’s something about the ambition and collective prowess behind “The Lamb” that has long cemented it as one of my desert island records even if its position within the catalog is that of an outlier.

As great as the two reunion shows I saw in 2007 and 2021 were in their own right, the Banks/Collins/Rutherford lineup was never going to touch this material with a 39-and-a-half-foot pole, so I had given up on seeing any of it live until Steve Hackett arrived in town earlier this month with his band of merry progsters in tow.

They brought pieces such as “Broadway Melody of 1974,” “Lilywhite Lilith,” and “The Chamber of 32 Doors” to life with stunning authority while allowing their fearless leader to show why his contributions to the original recipe were irreplaceable. Hackett’s repertoire of six-string gymnastics was on full display throughout the evening, and anyone paying attention could tell that he was having a blast. I know the word “master” gets thrown around quite often, but there’s really no better term to describe him at this stage of his career.

Vocalist Nad Sylvan has been living and breathing Genesis longer than Peter Gabriel ever did, so he’s able to put his own stamp on tracks like “The Carpet Crawlers” and “The Lamia” in a way that makes every note linger long after the songs have ended. The moment when he yelled out “A flower?” during “Supper’s Ready” was wonderful, because the connection he had established with the crowd led to a response that AI could never replicate.

Speaking of “Supper’s Ready,” how lucky were we to get the full 23-minute version in 2025?

Despite being referred to as the “Free Bird” of prog in certain circles, the composition can still knock you on your ass when performed with that level of intensity. Everyone in the band was locked in, and nobody in the audience was getting up to go to the bathroom.

Closing out the evening were transcendent takes on “Firth of Fifth” and “Los Endos,” both of which rivaled anything else you’ll hear this year. If you’re one of those people who thought that the local concert season dwindled once the calendar changed from summer to fall, think again.