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On December 8th, 2015 I went to see Roger Hodgson at the NAC though it was so bloody great I’d almost swear it had been a Supertramp show.
I have always, always loved Supertramp; it was one of the very few musical influences handed down by my brother (The Cars being the other). Breakfast In America is just such a perfect album and back when I used to dream of being able to play the piano it was invariably Supertramp songs like Fool’s Overture that I had perfected in my imagination. I had seen Supertramp sans Roger Hodgson back in the ’80’s and had enjoyed it but seeing Hodgson at the Ottawa Bluesfest was the real deal to me so I jumped at the chance to see him again in a great sounding soft-seat theatre.
And a great sounding show it was, in every regard. While I pictured a virtual orchestra in my mind when I listened to Supertramp records Roger Hodgson was able to perfectly recreate the songs with just a handful of musicians backing him up. Every drum hit, every guitar riff, every clarinet run was there, and it all sounded heavenly. Roger played a little guitar but stuck mostly to the piano and while his musicians were all great there was a multi-instrumentalist on stage left that came very close to stealing the show.
Whoever the guy was he managed to bounce between harmonica, reeds, brass, keys and more with dexterity and fluidity, and along the way he got to play all the coolest bits of every song and he nailed every last one of them*. But the quiet confidence of the frontman easily kept the sideman on the side as Hodgson handily brought the audience’s attention back to centre stage with every verse, every word lilted just like he sang them on the records, and just like they’ve been permanently engraved in my mind for my entire waking musical life.
There are certain bands that you just hope and pray will do the songs exactly the way they were recorded – bands like Rush, Meat Loaf, and Pink Floyd spring to mind – and Roger Hodgson/Supertramp unquestionably falls into this category. When the sax player takes his solo in The Logical Song he’s just got to play it like the record, the piano solo on Child Of Vision has to be just perfect, and this is exactly what Roger Hodgson and his well-rehearsed band delivered.
Of course I won’t have to go see him again for a long time to come. The songs will, after all, be played exactly the same, so why bother?
*Half a decade later I was happy to find the same guy had moved on to almost stealing the show from Kim Mitchell every night.
Todd Man Out 