PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
will play
FRIARS AYLESBURY at the
WATERSIDE THEATRE on
THURSDAY 31 OCTOBER 2024
Tickets on sale from ATG Tickets, Ticketmaster
and See Tickets.
(Online and by phone only 03330 096 690)
T
Ever since PSB played their sell-out Bright
Magic Friars Aylesbury show at the Waterside
in 2021, demand has been intense for them to
return. They immediately connected with the
Friars Aylesbury audience and are now regarded
as a core Friars Aylesbury band. There will be a
new album released before the October tour which
will be announced this summer.
PSB have been “teaching the lessons of the past
through the music of the future” for more than a
decade. 2013’s debut album
Inform-Educate-Entertain
used archival samples from the British Film
Institute as audio-portals to the Battle Of
Britain, the summit of Everest and beyond. Two
years later,
The Race For Space
used similar methods to laud the superpowers’
rivalry and heroism in orbit and on the moon. In
2017, joined by voices including Manic Street
Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield,
Every Valley
was a moving exploration of community and memory
via the rise and fall of the British coal
industry. Pointedly topical in its analyses, it
reached number four on the UK charts.
PSB are London based and consist of founding
member J. Willgoose Esq on guitar, banjo, other
stringed instruments, samplings and electronic
musical instruments, Wrigglesworth on drums,
piano and electronic instruments and J F Abraham
on flugelhorn, bass guitar, drums and assorted
other instruments including a vibraslap. The
band have toured internationally and in 2015
were announced as nominee in the Vanguard
Breakthrough category of the Progressive Music
Awards which they won.
Their 2021 album Bright
Magic was their most ambitious undertaking
yet. Based in the political metropolis that is
Berlin, Willgoose moved there from April 2019 to
January 2020 and immersed himself in Berlin
influences including Depeche Mode’s classic
eighties triumvirate, U2’s ‘Achtung baby’ and
particularly Bowie’s ‘Low’ and ‘Heroes’
albums……and there’s the Aylesbury connection.
Most recently with a celebration of the power of
radio written in recognition of the centenary of
the BBC, This New Noise saw the
band joining forces with the 88 piece BBC
Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jules
Buckley. A standout performance at the Royal
Albert Hall as part of the 2022 edition of the
BBC Proms, it received 5*s in The Telegraph who
called it “a resonant, timely and ultimately
touching show”. Willgoose remixed the
concert from scratch, bringing out even more
depth and texture from a multi-layered
performance and showing it in a new light.
This New Noise was released as an
album in Sept 2023.
STEVE
HACKETT – GENESIS GREATS, LAMB HIGHLIGHTS & SOLO
FRIARS AYLESBURY at the WATERSIDE
THEATRE 2 OCTOBER 2024
TICKETS on sale now
This is an all-seated concert. Tickets limited to a
maximum of 6 per person. Minimum age 8. The Waterside
Box Office is not open during the day.
Following
his stunning sell-out Friars date in September 2022,
Steve Hackett returns to Friars Aylesbury, the place
where Genesis began, for a special show marking the 50th
anniversary of Genesis’ sixth studio album The Lamb
Lies Down on Broadway which they released in 1974.
Friars was closely involved with Genesis throughout
their early career. In 1972, Friars thought the band
were in danger of splitting up, so a special Genesis
Convention gig was organised at Watford Town Hall in
June of that year to celebrate how good they were and to
attract some press attention. It worked, and Genesis
eventually went on to be one of the biggest bands in the
world. Genesis’ Mike Rutherford said in 2021 that if it
wasn’t for Friars the band may well have split up at
that time. In 2022 David Stopps presented Steve Hackett
with the FA Cup (the Friars Aylesbury Cup)
Steve Hackett’s timeless guitar-work was woven
throughout Genesis’ classic 70’s catalogue of albums. In
recent years he and his outstanding
touring line-up of
Roger King (keyboards),
Nad Sylvan (vocals),
Jonas Reingold (bass, backing vocals) Rob Townsend
(saxophone, flutes, additional keyboards) and
Craig Blundell (drums and
percussion)
have brought many of these albums back to great acclaim.
Craig Blundell
(Steven Wilson, King Crimson, Iron Maiden) was voted by
Modern Drummer and Rhythm Magazine readers as one of the
top progressive and forward thinking drummers in the
world.
Special guest, Amanda Lehmann will be joining the whole
of the UK tour on guitar and vocals. Many fans have
also been asking for more tracks from The Lamb to
be included. What better way to celebrate half-a-century
of this remarkable album than to include a selection of
Lamb Highlights alongside some of
Hackett’s finest solo work and unmissable Genesis
Greats.
“I’m
hugely looking forward to the 2024 UK tour,”
says Steve Hackett,
“including
‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ favourites as well as
other iconic Genesis numbers along with solo gems.”
About Steve Hackett
Steve Hackett joined Genesis at the beginning of 1971
and first played Friars Aylesbury in June 1971. He
quickly gained an international reputation as the
guitarist in the band’s classic line-up alongside Peter
Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins.
Steve’s intricate guitar work was a key element of
Genesis albums from Nursery Cryme (1971) to
Wind And Wuthering (1977) including the classic
Selling England By The Pound.
After leaving Genesis at the end of 1977, Steve’s solo
career, which now spans more than 30 albums, has
demonstrated his extraordinary versatility with both
electric and acoustic guitar. Steve is renowned as both
an immensely talented and innovative rock musician and a
virtuoso classical guitarist and composer and this was
recognised in 2010 when he was inducted into the Rock
Hall Of Fame. He has also worked alongside Steve Howe of
YES in the supergroup GTR.
Hackett’s compositions take influences from many genres,
including jazz, classical and blues. For his studio
works The Night Siren (2017) and At The Edge
Of Light (2019) Hackett has also explored the
influences of world music. Recent tours have seen
Hackett celebrate his time with Genesis including a
spectacular 2018 tour in which he realised a long-held
ambition to perform the works of Genesis live with his
band and an orchestra.
The lockdown enforced by the 2020 global pandemic has
proven to be a particularly creative period for Hackett.
He began by releasing Selling England by the Pound &
Spectral Mornings: Live at Hammersmith, a live
recording of 2019’s hugely successful tour celebrating
that Genesis classic together with the 40th
anniversary of one of his most-loved solo albums.
Lockdown also gave Hackett the opportunity to write and
record two new studio albums in 2021: the UK Classical
Chart hit Under A Mediterranean Sky and the hit
rock album Surrender of Silence.
Hackett and his band enjoyed a return to touring with
Genesis
Revisited - Seconds Out + More!
(2021) and
Genesis Revisited - Foxtrot At Fifty (2022) both of
which included Friars Aylesbury dates. Subsequently, the
live album
Genesis
Revisited - Seconds Out + More!,
released in 2022, became Hackett’s most successful-ever
live album reaching number 28 in the UK Album Chart and
achieving highest-ever chart positions in several
European countries.
He recently released the
live album from the 2022 tour - Foxtrot at Fifty +
Hackett Highlights – Live in Brighton.
Steve’s autobiography, A Genesis In My Bed was
published in 2020. Steve talks candidly about his early
life, his time with Genesis, and in particular his
personal relationships with the other band members,
with great insight into the daily goings on of this
major rock band.
