Trollheart

Yes, I was here before, spouting on about everything under the sun with a musical bent, but that was years ago and my Journal has, sadly, somewhat like my life, turned to dust, so here I am again, with version 2.0.

The first album that really "grabbed" me was Genesis's double-live "Seconds out", from which I gleaned my first taste of this band, as I had heard nothing prior to that, other than a scratchy cassette copy of "Foxtrot", and not much of that.

From this album I also learned the rather canny (to me) lesson that if you wanted to check out a band or artist and knew little about them, a live album was a pretty good way to decide whether or not you might be into them. It worked with Supertramp, Bob Seger, Dire Straits and more. It was, at a time when we had no real Internet to speak of, and certainly You Tube was still gestating in whatsisname's brain, as indeed was itunes in the mind of its creator, a good way to decide whether or not you liked an artist before shelling out what at the time would have been a lot of money on his, her or their repertoire. Needless to say, after listening to "Seconds out" I made it my business to buy the whole Genesis back catalogue (yes, even "Genesis to Revelation"!), though money was scarce back then so it took me some time.

So, in deference to the effect that album had on me, and its role in basically pushing me towards other bands of the ilk of Genesis, I'd like to present here a review of that double-live offering. Yes, I'm sure you have all listened to it inside out and know all there is to know about it, but you'll find that what I intend to do here anyway is just review albums that are not in any way new (though some may be), but which mean a lot to me, or which just had a particular effect on me. Also, my tastes are a lttle eclectic (though compared to the likes of Jackhammer they're positively humdrum!), so you can expect to see anything reviewed here from rock to metal to pop to classical and even instrumental, soundtracks maybe, the likes of Vangelis or Gandalf, even Country for godssake! Basically, if I like it, I won't be pigeonholing it, but it will be a candidate for review. Comments and suggestions are of course welcome.

So, without further ado, and about three years since my last entries, here we go with the first offering in my new journal. Hope you like it!

Seconds Out --- Genesis --- 1978 (Live) (Charisma)


I love the darkness of the sleeve for this album! It's very broody, full of stagelights and dry ice, the band shadowy figures in the foreground, almost dwarfed by the huge stage. Definitely gives you the sense that something big and dramatic is going on here, and so it proves, as the cheering dies down and is replaced by the opening strains of "Squonk" blasting across the stage. It's an interesting start: I didn't know it at the time of course, but it's the opener to 1976 classic "A Trick of the Tail", and it pounds its way across the stage, Phil Collins in fine form as he belts out lines like "In season, out of season / What's the difference when you don't know the reason?" and "All the while, in perfect time/ Your tears are falling on the ground / But if you don't stand up you don't stand a chance".



The cheering has barely died down after the powerful ending (on "Trick" the song fades out, which I was somewhat disappointed to hear when I got around to listening to the album, some time later) before the mood changes as the much more subtle, slower and almost classical in feel "Carpet crawlers" comes drifting in like a babbling brook, carried on the twin melodies of Steve Hackett's twelve-string and Tony Banks's electric piano, creating a lush backdrop against which Collins lays an understated, almost mumbling vocal to create one of the standouts from the band's first real concept album of the time, "The Lamb lies down on Broadway".


Of course it's all edited after the gig, but the juxtapositioning of the next track, also from "Trick" --- unsurprising, as they were touring to promote both that album and "Wind and wuthering", which came out in the same year, 1976 --- seems just right, as the jaunty "Robbery, Assault and Battery" toe-taps its way across the stage. I must admit, this has never been one of my favourite Genesis songs, being what I would call a frivilous track, where I preferred my Genesis laced with heavy doses of pomp, imagery and drama, but it's a crowd-pleaser, and you can clearly hear them all clapping along as Collins leads them in the verses. Slowing down then for the closer to side one (yes, records --- not CDs! --- had TWO sides, and a double album would of course have four. You had to flip it over to continue: no "shuffle" or "repeat play" in MY day!), taken from the other aforementioned album, "Wind and wuthering", "Afterglow" is a perfect set closer and just the sort of song to wind down to, I imagine, after you've bopped all over the place to "Robbery"! Always one of my favourite Genesis songs, the extended ending really did it for me, and again I was annoyed later to find out that it fades out much more quickly on the studio album.

And so, the cheering fades out and the needle lifts (whaddya mean, get on with it, Grandad??!!!) and so ends side one. Flip it over and the first thing to burst through is the power chords from "Firth of Fifth", sans, as I was to later find out, this time to my joy, the exquisite piano intro. A powerful track in its own right though, and with not that much in the way of lyrics. Most of the track is instrumental, going through some time signature changes as it progresses, and ending in a rousing finale, before fading out on Banks's tinking ivories, to again rapturous applause.


The album was recorded on the Paris leg of the tour (which is interesting for me, as the next live album I got was Supertramp's "Paris" --- guess where that was recorded?) and featured, apart from the main band lineup some stalwart session and support personnel, who would follow Genesis and even later their solo careers into the next few decades. People like Daryl Stuermer on guitar, Chester Thompson on drums and even the great Bill Bruford! Sadly, by now Peter Gabriel, driving force behind the band's early success, had left to pursue a solo career, and indeed this album would also mark the last performances of Steve Hackett with Genesis; he would also go on to forge a moderate solo career.

The next track up is a reworking of one of their hit singles, from "Selling England by the Pound", which many consider Genesis's best album (though not me). "I know what I like (in your wardrobe)" is accompanied by much audience participation and has the truly weirdest lyric I had ever heard, with lines like "When the sun beats down and I lie on my bench/ I can always hear them talk / Me? I'm just a lawnmower/ You can tell me by the way I walk." It also veers off in the middle into what is basically the ending of "Stagnation", from their very early "Trespass" album, then powers up manically for a thundering finish, before the opening strains of the title track to “The Lanb” drift through the air. I have to say, having heard that for the first time, it really made me want to hear the whole album --- no bad thing, as this of course turned out to be one amazing record! The end of “The Lamb” then segues perfectly into “The Musical Box”, or at least the closing section. This track appears on “Nursery cryme” in its entireity, and really has to be heard to be properly appreciated. But the closing section played here was an excellent ending to the first record, and rises from a quiet, understated opening to a thundering conclusion, elciting roars of approval from the lucky crowd.

And so ends side two, and record one.
But if I had thought, up to then, that I had experienced Genesis live, I was about to be corrected, and in no uncertain fashion! The ENTIRE third side of the album is taken up by one song, which runs for almost 24 minutes, and is the seminal Genesis classic epic, “Supper's ready”. Starting quietly and with disarming pastoral sounds, the song soon changes and over the course of the track runs thorugh more time signature changes and concepts in one song than many a band manage over an entire album! I just sat, transfixed, as the song unfolded before me like someone reading “Lord of the Rings” for the first time, and it just didn't seem to end! I had heard snippets of the original, sung by Peter Gabriel, and somehow it hadn't really got to me, but this version, sung by Collins, really opened my eyes to the song. To this day, I prefer the version off “Seconds Out” to the one off “Foxtrot”.

Footnote: YouTube footage of "Seconds Out" is hard to come by, so my apologies but the version of "Supper's ready" posted below is from 1973, with Peter Gabriel singing, but it will at least give you an idea what the song is like, if you haven't heard it...


And so to side four, and the last quarter of the concert. Opening with “The Cinema Show” from “Selling England by the Pound”, the song is given new life here, as on the original it faded out but here is extended and finishes powerfully, leaving two tracks from “Trick” to bring the album to a close, cleverly bookending “Trick of the tail” with the opening AND closing tracks, the sultry, powerful “Dance on a volcano” (featuring the obligatory drum solo) and winding up with the appropriately titled instrumental, “Los Endos”, which very cleverly loops around to the melody of “Squonk”, which kicked off the live album, giving what I now call the “Wall” effect, where you almost feel like you're going back around for another go right through the album, as in Pink Floyd's classic.

For anyone wanting to get into Genesis for the first time, “Seconds Out” is a great introduction to their early to mid period, from 1970 to 1976, and covers albums like “Trespass”, “Wind and Wuthering”, “Foxtrot”, “A Trick of the Tail”, as well as “The Lamb lies down on Broadway”, “Nursery Cryme” and “Selling England by the Pound.” Arguably this was their greatest period, before Steve Hackett left and the band became more or less a three-piece. Their next release was in 1978, the decidely more commercial (and aptly titled) “And then there were three”, and to be honest, though this was a good album they never really regained the true progressive rock roots that they showed on the aforementioned albums. “Seconds Out” is both a time-capsule of Genesis at their best, and in many ways, the end of an era.

TRACKLISTING
1. Squonk
2. The carpet crawl
3. Robbery, assault and battery
4. Afterglow
5. Firth of Fifth
6. I know what I like (in your wardrobe)
7. The Lamb lies down on Broadway
8. The Musical Box (closing section)
9. Supper's ready
10. The Cinema Show
11. Dance on a volcano
12. Los Endos


Suggested further listening: "Trick of the tail", "Nursery cryme", "Foxtrot" "Wind and wuthering" by Genesis, plus the rest of their catalogue (!) "Three sides live" is another good live album of theirs.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018