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Seconds Out
Genesis
Atlantic, 1976
http://www.genesis-music.com
REVIEW BY: Benjamin Ray
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 05/17/2005
A live album is supposed to offer something new to familiarsongs. Longer solos, different structure, more power, astripped-down approach -- all are hallmarks of truly great livealbums. Unfortunately, Genesis never really put out a great livealbum of their early repertoire, as this double-album/disc setproves.
The songs represented are mostly from A Trick Of The Tail, though a fair number are from theprevious albums and only one is taken from the album this set is insupport of, 1976's Wind & Wuthering. This means the listener gets a goodsampler of every Genesis album from 1970 forward, but it also meansPhil Collins has to assume the role of departed frontman PeterGabriel for these classic songs.
Are they done poorly on Seconds Out? Not by any means. These are great songs, afterall. But there is nothing new or really exciting here; in fact,Genesis often stated they preferred to perform their pieces asclose to the studio versions as possible, in the old days. Giventhe complexity, this makes sense.
"Squonk," "Robbery, Assault and Battery" and "Dance on aVolcano" are all present here, with no real modifications to theoriginals. "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" and "The Carpet Crawl"are also here, with the former being a basic run-through and thelatter a quite good performance of a Gabriel classic. Also,although it marked the first time the song was put on a liveoffering, "Supper's Ready" is a fairly standard rendition of aGenesis favorite, with not much new to offer.
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