Venue:
The Playhouse, Edinburgh
Date: 25/09/2021
Some context is in order, I think. Seconds Out, by Genesis (a live double album, as was the fashion), was my first proper album (I’m excluding Follow, Follow Rangers). I was given it – at my own request – for Christmas 1977, when I was 15. I’m not entirely sure why – I was mildly obsessed with hifi equipment at the time (we had none) and I’d read a review in a hifi magazine that had caught my interest, I think. I was astonished by the music; it was like nothing else I’d ever heard. My previous experience of music was either Top of the Pops, Radio1 or what my parents listened to (The Clancy Brothers, mainly). But this was something else entirely. It was at turns melancholy and exhilarating, constantly twisting and changing. And the lyrics! Creatures that dissolved in their own tears, urban lambs, angels standing in the sun. It was a world about as far away from a council estate in central Scotland as could be imagined. And maybe that was why I fell for it quite so hard. I pieced my experience of music backwards and forwards from there and, in time, I found I didn’t want to listen to it any more.
Fast forward 40 years or so and Steve Hackett, erstwhile Genesis guitarist, is touring the Seconds Out album in its entirety. I decide to go and check it out, essentially motivated by nostalgia. It could have been awful – I hadn’t listened to that album for a while and my tastes have changed – maybe I wouldn’t like the songs? Maybe the whole evening would collapse in a welter of ‘I am my own tribute band’ ridiculousness? However, none of those things were the case. Reader, it was bloody marvellous.
A short set of solo/new album stuff was fine. After an interval, Seconds Out was played in its entirety, in order. And what a fantastic set of material it is. The thing that struck me about those Genesis songs is how packed full of melody it they are. There’s always something new and interesting happening, and that something usually involves a memorable tune. The band played with genuine enthusiasm, which was reciprocated by the audience. I really didn’t expect people to start singing along, en masse, to Supper’s Ready, or to give a spontaneous standing ovation at the end.
While the band stayed pretty close to the original, there were changes that I guess Hackett, as co-composer, felt able to make. There was a really good use of soprano sax, for example. The band obviously know their chops – these are complex pieces, after all – but special mention of Nad Sylvan, doing the vocals. Close enough to Gabriel/Collins to carry it off but not so similar that it was tributey.
In short, a much-loved blast from my past that left me remembering (and feeling) why I loved it so much and how much it had meant to me. I commend it to the House.
The audience:
Well. Let’s just say it was a fair bet that we’d all been double-jabbed. But where were all these people when I was 15 and thought I was the only person in the world who liked this music?
It made me think..
Genesis really were a very, very good band and the music they made stands up well. Steve Hackett is doing a rendition that is somehow manages to be both faithful and fresh. I’m really glad I went.
On reflection, I think where that Genesis material scores, compared to some of their prog contemporaries, is that there’s no aimless noodling – just tight, action-packed songs. Albeit long ones.
Oh – and it was great to be back at a gig again, though pretty strange to be wearing a mask all the way through..
Great review. I was at The Palladium, last Wednesday. It was a brilliant gig.
Terrific review! I’d love to see this performance; when the LP originally came out I was a little saddened, as it seemed to me like the last live hurrah of their glory years, but it’s earned its keep over the years and remains a great listen. Hackett’s guitar never seemed to get the presence it demanded on disc, so I’d be keen to hear him let rip at a decent level!
Good job you posted that – I’ve got a ticket for the Newcastle date but it’s been rescheduled so many times now that I’d completely forgotten it was even this year. The Nick Mason ticket I bought at about the same time has been punted forward to next summer and I thought this one had been too!
Lovely review. I really enjoy people talking about discovering an album, artist, genre and the ensuing epiphany.
I loved this album and played it incessantly for years [ok, a lot, for a good while] and could have written your experience of it, with the addition that I listened through headphones and played the drums with my Mums knitting needles on her best cushions, while her and my Dad watched telly – I must have driven them mad. The concert sounds great, until the part where the audience sing along to Suppers Ready…
Ha! At school we used to sing along en masse to Supper’s Ready on the coach on the way to games. There was an unwritten competition to see who could remember the most of it.
Really looking forward to the gig in Bradford this coming Friday. Saw him a couple of years ago in Halifax doing Selling England and it was wonderful
Saw Genesis on the Wind and Wuthering tour in 1977 (Dundee Caird Hall) and it remains one of the best gigs I have ever been to.
Much rather see Steve Hackett playing Seconds Out than see Genesis on their current tout. A LOT less expensive too.
Not a fan at all but have always thought the light display amazing and very distinctive. Instantly recognisable.