Seconds Out



Seconds Out is the second live album from the English rock band Genesis, released as a double album in October 1977 on Charisma Records. It is formed of recordings from their four dates at the Palais des Sports in Paris in June 1977 on their Wind & Wuthering Tour. "The Cinema Show" was recorded in 1976 at the Pavillon de Paris during their A Trick of the Tail Tour.

Seconds Out received average to positive reviews upon its release, and reached No. 4 in the UK and No. 47 in the US. Its release coincided with the departure of guitarist Steve Hackett who left the group during the album's mixing stages, thus reducing Genesis to the core trio of keyboardist Tony Banks, guitarist Mike Rutherford, and drummer and singer Phil Collins who recorded ...And Then There Were Three... by this time. Seconds Out has been reissued for CD in 1994 and 2009, the latter as part of the Genesis Live 1973–2007 box set.

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".

Song notes
"Firth of Fifth" is performed without the piano introduction, beginning immediately with the lyrics. A similar recording appears on Genesis Archive 1967-75. Tony Banks stopped playing the piano introduction in concert during the Selling England by the Pound tour, as electric pianos of the time were not sensitive enough to recreate the "classical" feel of the introduction.

This album's version of "I Know What I Like" includes excerpts from "Stagnation" and "Visions of Angels" (Trespass), "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" (Selling England by the Pound) and "Blood on the Rooftops" (Wind & Wuthering).

A digitally remastered version was released on CD in 1994 on Virgin in Europe and on Atlantic in the U.S. and Canada. Both this and the earlier UK CD edition mistrack the transition from "Dance on a Volcano" to "Los Endos" a few minutes late. (The original LP banded them together as one track) The version included in the Genesis Live 1973–2007 box set corrects this error. Longtime Genesis producer Nick Davis completed a 5.1 remix of this and other Genesis live albums which were released as a box set in September 2009. In November 2012, a 35th Anniversary Vinyl Edition was pressed using the 2009 remasters.

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

 * Tony Banks: Hammond T. organ, RMI Electra Piano, Mellotron M400, ARP Pro Soloist, Epiphone 12-string acoustic guitar, backing vocals
 * Phil Collins: lead vocals, Premier and Gretsch drums (on "Robbery, Assault and Battery" (during keyboard solo), "Firth of Fifth", "The Musical Box", "Supper's Ready" (during "Apocalypse in 9/8" section) , "Cinema Show" (during keyboard solo) & "Los Endos"), percussion
 * Steve Hackett: Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, Hokada 12-string acoustic guitar
 * Mike Rutherford: Shergold electric 12-string guitar and bass, 8-string bass, Alvarez 12-string acoustic guitar, Moog Taurus bass pedals, backing vocals

with
 * Chester Thompson: Pearl Drums and percussion on all tracks except "The Cinema Show"
 * Bill Bruford: Hayman and Ludwig drums and percussion on "The Cinema Show"

Sleeve design: photo by Armando Gallo