TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME - LIVE IN MONTREAL

Clearly when one goes to see Hodgson in concert, one doesn't have to expect some demented and manic prog rock, or any kind of prog at all for that matter, but missing his passage in town is a bit of a treason to the great 70's SupergroupTramp they were. And indeed, the charismatic Roger's persona would make the treachery greater, given that he seems so genuinely gentle and generous of his time. In this umpteenth tour, Roger is again working solo, even if he has an accomplice on sax and sometimes on keyboards with Canada's Kitchener-born Aaron McDonald. And his musical partner in crime gets a warm welcome from the Montreal crowd (always a historical hotspot for Supertramp), even if the DVD shows people from all over the continent attending this particular gig. Set up on an all-too big stage for his lone presence and his Pancho teammate, our favourite modern-day Don Quichotte attacks his repertoire of classics, ultra-classics, semi-classics and almost-classics and tries to stick in there some would-be-classics and even maybe some future-classic tracks.

And of course from Long Way Home, to Hide In Your shell, to Logical song, to Dreamer, to Breakfast and a surprising School (where he asks and gets full audience participation), Roger hovers from his Electric piano to the grand piano (a little under-used IMHO) to his acoustic guitar with great eases and in no rush since the slightly over-appreciative crowd gives him an amazing amount of standing ovations, obviously getting to our Don Quichotte's heart and him knowing his recognition is in no danger. Indeed his list of Tramp classics is impressive and one (I anyway) feels that Roger's windmill targets are all usurped by Davies and such a DVD has ulterior motives. While I probably wouldn't have chosen the same song selection or would've rearranged the set's running order (avoiding Give A Little Bit getting a second go) and not avoided the two EITQM superb pieces.

One of the only irritating points, apart the omission of a full Fool's Overture and a live rendition of Even In The Quietest Moments (which this writer saw and heard done at the Belgian Radio for his Open The Door tour), is the insistence of the Hodgson entourage (and himself) to claim his part of the heritage of Supertramp, as if the public needed reminding or as if the Davies-led group was denying it at all. It all seems as if Roger felt he had the right of an unconditional reinstating the group as he wished and with no explanation given. And given Supertramp's fairly average recorded output, matching Hodgson's equally averageoutput