Steve Hackett bringing sounds of Genesis to Birmingham Symphony Hall

For decades now, Hackett has been the sole keeper of the flame for what many fans consider the "classic Genesis" era, from 1971's Nursery Cryme album to 1976's Wind & Wuthering.

This was an age before the stadium-filling pop rock hits, when the band created complex, challenging evocative and utterly British music, flying the flag for what became known as prog rock.

Hackett is the only former Genesis member who has regularly covered this era on tour, scattering classic "old Genesis" masterpieces throughout his own solo setlists.

But now he has gone one better. On his "Genesis Revisited" tour, which calls in at Birmingham Symphony Hall on Thursday, May 16, and Tuesday, October, 22, Hackett will play only songs from this era, the likes of Watcher Of The Skies, Los Endos, The Musical Box, Dancing With the Moonlit Knight and the song often hailed as prog's highest point, the mighty Supper's Ready.

Hackett explains how the tour came about: "I was being offered larger and larger venues as a solo act because we'd done very well with shows recently and I just thought what if I gave them a Genesis show as a one-off this year but one thing seems to have led to another."

Fans attending both Birmingham concerts – the first has sold out - will be pleased to learn that the two sets, although similar, will not be identical.

Hackett explains: "We've got a fixed set but we've got some songs that we call 'revolving doors' that we can include or we can leave them out to create variety for when we're hitting the same places twice."

The tour comes hot on the heels of the successful Genesis Revisited II double CD, featuring Hackett's arrangements of 21 classic songs by the band he left in 1977.

"The reaction to the album was extraordinary," says Hackett. "In the first week of release it was outselling all sorts of huge acts. At the time it just went straight into the top 10.

"I'm amazed that the reaction to something obviously so nostalgic was so strong. I was absolutely thrilled with it. And the dates seem to be selling out which is extraordinary. The first leg of the British Tour is sold out. The second half, when we come back to Birmingham Symphony Hall in October, that's on sale now."

Looking back at the songs chosen for Genesis Revisited II, Hackett says: "I think they're pretty faithful to the originals although I have taken liberties with some of the guitar parts, particularly in the play-out of things such as Supper's Ready.

"I couldn't find myself playing exactly the same phrases on the play-out because it was improvised in the first place. I do like it when it cuts loose from its moorings and ventures off into other territories. But lots of these things are very well known, so I've stuck with things that still hold their resonance."

He adds: "I do feel very proud of those early songs. They were very pre-composed, very robustly written and they've stood the test of time, both from the live performances of the band at the time and various reinterpretations that those of us have done. Phil Collin has done versions of things with his big band. I've done quite a lot of revisiting that stuff during my live set,

"I think that at first you can be quite shy about this stuff when you kick off with a solo career and you're trying to establish a separate sense of identity - you won't touch it with a barge pole. But then all these years down the line you think this stuff is so incredibly well known and it's just proved such a winner doing it.

"It's been great to revisit it and record it again with the techniques of now and change some parts and add to it in places and generally enlarge it and polish it up like a jewel case - or do I mean a musical box? – to give it a sheen that perhaps the original recordings didn't have.

"Obviously they had lots of spontaneous fire at the time. When you listen back with the ears of now and they way things are recorded with click tracks, in time and in tune simultaneously, it wasn't always the case with albums that were made in the very early 70s. You took the rough with the smooth when you were all recording together."

How about the fans' reactions to the album and the tour?

"I think that the Genesis camp, in terms of fans has been split into two factions, one of which will say the Gabriel years were the 'real Genesis' and everything after that is sacrilege.

"I sort of stand somewhere inbetween because I'm aware of the fact the production techniques changed after a certain point, when you start recording to click tracks and you've got compressed drums and all that, so it sounds very exciting.

"But I think the early years, with the five-piece band all kicking in with ideas relentlessly is what made that songwriting collective strong. So you've got a lot of variety with that and I think it was a very exciting time and we were constantly surprising ourselves."

Talking of surprises, have there been any pleasant discoveries when revisiting the old songs?

"There have been lots and lots of pleasant surprises. I think certainly when I'm playing them live I've changed certain things, maybe gone for a dirtier guitar sound, something where the guitar's a bit more upfront on it and sometimes I've taken on board things that were Mike Rutherford acoustic parts and I'm playing them on an electric.

"On the album we had so many great lead singers who took over – it was safety in numbers because Gabriel and Collins were a very hard act to follow. The nice thing is these songs seem to be able to transcend their original boundaries and they survive reinterpretation by other performers.

"I'm amazed that these songs have lasted that long. The interest in them just doesn't go away."

• Steve Hackett plays Symphony Hall, Birmingham, on Thursday, May 16, which is sold out, and Tuesday, October, 22. Tickets for the October concert cost £24.50 and £26.50 plus transaction fees.

By Ian Harvey