Originally published by L.S. Media. September 16th 2011.
The music of Supertramp can easily send shivers down the spine of their fans, from classics such as Goodbye Stranger to the dramatic and sensual Lord is it Mine? The band have long been touted as one of the finest examples of British music from the last 50 years.
It is strange and surprising that even though the band rarely tour and Roger Hodgson has never been so popular with his touring that there are so few musicians who seem willing to take on the music and forever remind audiences how good the band’s sound is live.
In Logical Tramp, the band lives on and with some great energy and spirit thrown in for good measure. There were genuine moments of pure delight for the fans that turned up in their droves and when the lights finally went up at the end of the night, the look on the faces who had kicked off their weekend in style said it all; they had not been let down one bit.
From almost every era of the bands history, Gary Hopkins, Laurent Hunziker, Anthony Clayton, Serge Saint Rose, Grant Wildy anf the very impressive Matt Love, thrilled the audience with renditions of songs such as Breakfast in America, Bloody Well Right, Hide in Your Shell and the progressive stylings of Fools Overture.
Every song was greeted wildly and by an audience that didn’t stop singing along with the band all evening. Even on some of the more demanding of songs such as It’s Raining Again and Rudy it was more evident that everyone was having a good time.
Logical Tramp were joined on stage by vocalist and fellow Supertramp fan Tamas Csemez for the show at the Pacific Road venue as usual mainstay Willy Norton was indisposed for the evening, however in Tamas, the band were as superb and technically perfect as it was possible to get. Tamas’s voice was a joy to hear and it blended well with Gary Hopkins whose position within the band was to take on the voice and words of Rick Davies. In this, the two men succeeded beyond measure and it’s a shame in a way that they don’t perform together all the time.
An evening of classic Supertramp songs bought to audiences ears by some superb and adept musicianship.
Ian D. Hall