Seconds Out

History

Seconds Out is the band's second live album following 1973's Genesis Live. While the earlier live set had been released to mark time while they recorded Selling England by the Pound, Seconds Out was planned as a major release, an authoritative document of Genesis' sound with Phil Collins as frontman and lead vocalist. The recording includes former Weather Report/Frank Zappa drummer Chester Thompson at the start of his long tenure as concert drummer for the band. Former Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford, the first drummer to take over for Collins on the stage, played drums on the band's 1976 tour, from which the recording of "The Cinema Show" was taken. Thompson replaced Bruford on the band's 1977 tour, which was the source of all other songs on the album. Guitarist Steve Hackett left the band during mid-1977 as Seconds Out was being mixed. Phil Collins recalls that one day he was driving to Trident Studios in London and saw Hackett walking, so he stopped and offered him a lift, which Hackett declined. When he got to the studio, Banks and Rutherford told him he just phoned to tell them he was leaving the band. Hackett later recalled that he thought if he got in the car, Collins would have been the one person to talk him out of leaving.

On the Genesis – A History video (1990), Tony Banks jokes that, after Hackett announced his departure from the band, "we just mixed him out of the rest of the album and that was it, really". Although Hackett's guitar is clearly audible, it certainly lacks the volume of previous albums or, even, rough soundboard mix bootlegs from the 1977 tour. During a radio interview after the album release, Collins stated that most of the 1977 sections were taken from the third of the four-night run at the Palais des Sports in Paris from 13 June 1977, which was also recorded and broadcast in part by French radio RTL.

The album's credits include details of which drummer(s) are playing on each song. Mixed in with these credits are the notes "Robbery Assault & Battery – keyboard solo Phil" and "Cinema Show – Bill Bruford, Phil keyboard solo". This should be read to mean that Collins played the drum kit (along with Thompson or Bruford) during that solo, not that Collins played keyboards.

A critical and commercial success, the album hit No. 4 in the UK and No. 47 in the U.S., where their popularity was still gaining steam.

Until Genesis Archive 1967–75 (1998), Seconds Out contained the only official live recording of Genesis concert staple "Supper's Ready".

Critical reception

Rolling Stone praised the contemporary incarnation of the band, noting they had "less reliance on theatrics and an added dollop of jazz-rock inclinations" than before Peter Gabriel's departure. However, they criticised the album for being nothing more than a recreation of their studio recordings, making it an essentially pointless release.

In their retrospective review, AllMusic wrote that Genesis's renderings of songs from A Trick of the Tail and Wind & Wuthering surpass the studio recordings, chiefly due to Chester Thompson's drumming, which they described as "at least a match for Collins' best playing." They considered the tracks from earlier albums to be weaker, however, finding Collins' vocals inferior to Gabriel's.

Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins has described Seconds Out as "one of my drum bibles" and "one of my favorite-sounding drum records too."

Track listing

All songs written by Tony Banks/Phil Collins/Peter Gabriel/Steve Hackett/Mike Rutherford, except where noted.

Personnel

with

Sleeve design: photo by Armando Gallo