Roger Hodgson At The Palais April 6, 2010

by Paul Cashmere - April 7 2010

photo by Ros O'Gorman

If you were ever a fan of Supertramp then attending a Roger Hodgson concert these days is as good as it gets and it gets good.

Hodgson was a founding member of the band but left in 1983.

As the principal songwriter of Supertramp and lead singer of the songs he wrote Hodgson solo sounds exactly like Supertramp which is a good thing.

Roger’s solo career was infrequent so his choice of songs to perform live falls almost entirely on his Supertramp career. The one new and unreleased song he did perform in this set was ‘The Awakening’.

Roger Hodgson is also a funny, likeable guy often recounting the stories behind the songs before he sang them.

Just don’t ask him to sing songs he didn’t write. “I’m telling you now I didn’t write ‘Bloody Well Right’ so don’t yell out for it,” he told the crowd early in the show.

It was hardly needed. The Roger Hodgson setlist reads like a history of music at a point of time starting with the ‘Breakfast In America’ track ‘Take The Song Way Home’ and ending with the pop hit ‘It’s Raining Again’.

The setlist from April 6 at the Palais, Melbourne was:

Take The Long Way Home (from Breakfast In America, 1979)

Give A Little Bit (from Even In The Quietest Moments, 1977)

Lovers In The Wind (from In The Eye of the Storm, 1984)

A Soapbox Opera (from Crisis What Crisis, 1975)

Easy Does It (from Crisis What Crisis, 1975)

Sister Moonshine (from Crisis What Crisis, 1975)

Breakfast In America (from Breakfast In America, 1979)

Along Came Mary (from Open The Door, 2000)

The Logical Song (from Breakfast In America, 1979)

Lord Is It Mine (from Breakfast In America, 1979)

Child Of Vision (from Breakfast In America, 1979)

The Awakening (new)

Don’t Leave Me Now (from Famous Last Words, 1982)

Dreamer (from Crime of the Century, 1974)

Fool’s Overture (from Even In The Quietest Moments, 1977)

School (from Crime of the Century, 1974)

It’s Raining Again (from Famous Last Words, 1982)