Genesis "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.

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".