Roger Hodgson-The Pavillion, Glasgow- 27 May 2011

Former Supertramp frontman Roger Hodgson returned to Glasgow in Scotland for the first time in four years as part of his short tour of the UK. He played in a theatre called “The Pavillion” a venue usually reserved for stage shows and pantomimes (“an extensive range of refreshments were available at the interval”). When I went to buy the tickets, the youngster at the ticket desk thought Mr. Hodgson must be an up and coming comedian.

The venue proved to a good choice though, offering an intimate atmosphere for the performance. It seems the concert must have sold out some months ago, the highly enthusiastic audience giving Roger a fitting welcome back. I should say that the audience were pretty much all of a certain age, I think I actually brought the average down! Unlike his previous visit which was essentially a one man show with additions by the multi-talented Aaron MacDonald, this was a full band gig. MacDonald remained in the line up, being joined by two further Canadians on keyboards and bass, and an American on drums.

This was therefore like a Supertramp gig in all but name. Roger performed a good selection of the songs he had written during his time with Supertramp, including three from “Crime of the century” (“School”, “If everyone was listening” and the sublime “Hide in your shell”). He also included a selection from his solo albums, the highlights of these being “Lovers in the wind” and “Along came Mary”. While most of the songs were singles or potential singles, the set did include full renditions of “Child of vision”, “A soapbox opera” and “Fools overture” from the Supertramp days. It was of course songs such as “Dreamer”, “Take the long way home”,”Breakfast in America” and and “It's raining again” though which received the most enthusiastic reception.

As roger himself said, his biggest challenge was not deciding what to perform, but deciding what to leave out. Being churlish and selfish, I would ave dearly like to have seen the two epic tracks “Sleeping with the enemy” and “Only because of you” from “In the eye of the storm” included in the set. We should though be grateful that Roger is touring, that he included Glasgow in the tour, and that his superb compositions are being heard performed in the way they were intended.

Congratulations to Roger on becoming a grandfather!