SECONDS OUT

I could never get the feel of "Seconds Out", to me there seems to be something fake about it. "Seconds Out" was one of my first Genesis albums and I was a little annoyed when I discovered it was a live album. I was expecting it to be a studio album and the fact that there was no Peter Gabriel annoyed me even more. I thought that no Genesis album is complete without Peter Gabriel. So, for a long time this was all I had to go on with Genesis until about a month later when I purchased some more of the band's stuff. Now I realise that "Seconds Out" is a rather good performance, its no genuine Genesis in terms of line up, but it isn't bad. A couple of stand in drummers were brought in to compensate for the fact that Phil Collins because lead vocalist in Peter Gabriel's wake. Bill Bruford and Chester Thompson were recruited into the band to substitute for the absence of Collins (on drums). The boys did a fantastic job and the drum sounds are as clean and coherent as on the studio albums.

Steve Hackett's guitar is clean and precise as ever here and his solo on "Firth of Fifth" loses none of its magic. The instrumentation in general is great, the music loses the Peter Gabriel feel in parts, and in particular songs like "Suppers Ready" aren't the same without his passionate singular voice. Also with Peter Gabriel went the real flute and oboe, a minor point to some but for me the flute in "Suppers Ready" is very important to the mood of the piece. I think its criminal to have only included the ending of "The Musical Box" and there is nothing from 'Trespass' and very little of 'Nursery Crime.' 'Trick of the Tail' and 'Selling England by the Pound' both got considerable work-outs with several (exaggerated number) songs taken from both. These include a fantastic version of "I Know What I like" which involves the crowd and gives the song an extra dimension.

Overall the absence of Peter Gabriel isn't as grievous as one would expect, the only major things lacking are genuine vocals and a real flute. Apart from that this is genuine Genesis and is well worth three stars. I'd recommend "Seconds Out" to all Genesis nuts out there, and just to confirm: don't let the absence of Peter Gabriel affect your judgement too much. Good, but non-essential

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