Roger Hodgson & 10CC – The Palais Theatre

To some audiences the combination of 10CC and Roger Hodgson (formerly of Supertramp) was a match made in heaven – two musically superior and unquestionably clever bands whose hits still enjoy extensive airplay. But I suspect this double bill was actually more a marriage of convenience – two acts thrown together by virtue of them being both in Australia for Bluesfest. It was interesting to note that neither acknowledged the other on the night.

Regardless the audience seemed very satisfied with both – as standing ovations and encores greeted both sets.

Both acts were short of personnel from their heyday. The 2010 10CC contained only Graham Gouldman from the original band. No Godley and Crème and no Eric Stewart. Roger Hodgson performed the material of Supertramp without Rick Davies.

10CC was the more problematic of the two. Joining Gouldman was another four members and to be fair they were all outstanding players, two of whom Rick Fenn and Paul Burgess had been playing these songs for a good many years. Most notable was Mick Wilson who managed to replicate the missing lead vocals in an almost uncanny way.

But somehow it felt like a tribute band a lot of the time – a very, very good tribute band, but a tribute band nonetheless.

Some of the songs were resounding successes, most obviously I’m Mandy, Fly Me where Wilsons vocal performance was just outstanding and Art For Arts Sake where the brilliance of the composition wasn’t dulled by the performance at all. Even the massed vocal arrangement of I’m Not In Love was well replicated when it could have been excused had it not been.

It was great to hear some gems like The Things We Do For Love, Good Morning Judge and the encore Rubber Bullets but somehow the performance just lacked a little heart and veered a little too close to “cruise ship” to be regarded as a triumph.

There was no lack of heart in Roger Hodgson’s performance. Here was a musician and a songwriter performing his songs for no other reason than there was nothing else he would rather be doing. He came across as a humble man and one who was genuinely appreciative of the fact that people had come out to see him after an absence of 34 years.

After selling 60 million albums around the world you could have expected him to exude a little more of a sense of entitlement to the adulation he received but he really seemed thankful and well adjusted to the combination of great talent and good fortune that bought him to this point in his life.

His performance was exemplary. Vocally he seems actually stronger and more assured than when he was a younger man making multi million selling albums. His guitar playing and keyboard work was superb and he was extremely well complemented by young Canadian multi instrumentalist Aaron MacDonald who managed to bring a lot of the memorable instrumental moments from the records to life in the concert environment.

The greatest complement you could pay would be to say that you didn’t miss the full band arrangements at all – and I can say that with assurance.

That has a lot to do with the quality of the songs of course. These are undeniably great compositions and that stand the dual tests of time and stripped back performance with flag flying.

The hits were there of course – Take A Long Way Home, Give A Little Bit, Dreamer, The Logical Song, Its Raining Again and Breakfast In America were all wonderful but some of the lesser known songs like Along Came Mary, Lovers In The Wind and an unrecorded song that might have been called The Awakening were equally as good. In fact the latter, with its interesting look at the tendency to “re-write your story” once you reach a certain place in your life was a highlight.

Roger Hodgson is one of the contemporary pop worlds great talents and its well worth making the effort to see his show, pay homage and be thoroughly entertained by a quality individual.

Roger Hodgson In Conversation

Roger Hodgson was one of the two songwriters and the most recognisable voice of Supertramp. And by definition that meant for a period in the 70’s he was one of the most highly regarded, commercially successful and interesting musicians on the planet. How many people can say that? Hodgson walked away from Supertramp to concentrate on raising his family and he stayed away for close to twenty years. But around five years ago he started performing again and that road now leads him to Australia for the Bluesfest and a series of headline shows.

Hey Hey My My spoke to the man responsible for a remarkable set of songs including The Logical Song, Breakfast In America, Take The Long Way Home, Dreamer, Give A Little Bit, It’s Raining Again and Crime Of The Century, a remarkable body of work by anyones standards.

HHMM : When I listen to Supertramp songs now I am struck by how well they stand up today. Is that a common response/reaction that you get and is it a view you share?

RH : I’m very aware of it actually. I took a good sabbatical from the music industry for 18 years or so and I’ve been touring again for the last five. It’s amazing how fresh the songs sound to me as well as to the audience. People are always coming up after the show and saying things like “ these songs haven’t faded, they sound fresh, the lyrics are still pertinent and relevant today” And when I sing them every night its amazing how much I enjoy every single one. I didn’t set out to do this but I think the songs really do have an evergreen quality and they have stood the test of time really well.

HHMM :  To what extent is that timelessness of the songs a product of good songwriting and to what extent is it the product of production/arrangements etc being ahead of their time?

RH : I think the bands strength was that we had two really strong songwriters, myself and Rick Davis. Although the credits were always joint we actually wrote separately from Crime Of The Century onward. The songs were very personal to us and they came from personal experience and its very hard to do that when  you are writing with someone.
Part of why they have stood the test of time is that I never sat down and said “I’m going to write a hit song” They just came out of me being in that space where the songs came naturally.
I really had an innate ability, and I still do, to hear where the song wants to go. It’s almost like I am listening to where the song wants to be. It wasn’t constructed. Usually there was something going on in my life that I wanted to express. Somertimes it was pain, sometimes longing for love, sometimes loneliness. These qualities in the songs endured too. The songs struck a nerve with people then and they still do because they still have the emotion that they were born out of.

HHMM: The songs seem to be written and arranged as ‘musical journeys’ – with many parts/movements/sections – rather than the verse/chorus approach of pop songs. Was that a conscious approach to do something more challenging?

RH : I never analysed it then. To me they felt very natural. But when I have listened to them and thought about them, yes, I do agree that that they don’t fit into the verse/chorus/verse/chorus. They are very different and the chords are anything but the standard three or four chords. Although, Give A Little Bit, for example is a very simple song. So I’ve written the gamut. I’ve written very simple songs like Give A Little Bit. The Logical Song does have verse/chorus but it is not the typical verse/chorus! They sound natural to me but when you start dissecting them they are anything but normal rock n’ roll songs.

HHMM :  Music with hight artistic ambitions and popular appeal don’t often go together. How were you able to reconcile artistic expression with mass popular appeal?

RH : Probably by not trying. There is a difference between having music be your total passion and what you live for and trying to be successful with your music. I’ve done both and when I tried to be successful and tried to come up with a hit song, I fell flat on my face.
These songs came from the fact that I was lucky enough to have a place to go and express my deepest emotions and my deepest heart and soul and what was happening in my life. And what I loved to do more than anything else was to pick up a guitar or go to a piano or a pump organ and just let the music flow. So many time magic would happen and little bits and pieces that would eventually turn into songs would appear. It’s a very magical process and in a way true inspiration has been buried under the commerciality of the business unfortunately. True inspiration come from that place of passion and caring and really getting your ego out of the way and letting an inner force take over. Then surprising things happen and magical things happen.
I listen to a lot of classical composers and for them the times that they had their greatest inspiration they were taken over and channelled. I really believe that the highest art of any kind is when the artist is in that place.
For me, I grew up with The Beatles. I was very fortunate to be a teenager when The Beatles were happening. They blew my mind and showed me what was possible with music. They didn’t sound like they were trying to write hit songs, they were just having a blast, experimenting to their hearts content and breaking their own boundaries with each album. It resonated with me and showed me what was possible and what I wanted to do when I teamed up with Rick and we formed Supertramp. I wanted to see what heights we could achieve with Supertramp and that was my dream and passion for the fourteen years I was with them.

HHMM :  In hindsight I’m able to detect a “surrealist” element to Supertramp both lyrically and in terms of the artwork etc. Was surrealism a big influence on you then?

RH :  I think we were influenced by everything that was happening at that time. To me, it was a case of straddling a lot of different things at the same time. You look at the album covers, you listen to the music, there’s a lot of realness and surrealness, there’s tongue-in-cheek humour. There’s insanity. There’s all kinds of things mixed up together. For me as a songwriter I liked leaving it open to the listener to get what they wanted from it. Was that surrealism? There was a lot of surrealness in it but there was a lot of realness too.

HHMM:  Another thing I noticed listening to the songs again was how important the introductions were – an audience or a radio listener can immediately identify a song – were you aware of the importance of this?

RH : I always approached my songs and albums as a listening experience. I wanted to draw people in and give them an experience and leave them in a different place to where they were at the beginning of the song. And especially in the course of an album that is a part of composition. It was just the nature of what I did. Pink Floyd knew how to do it too – draw them in and then take them on a journey. I used to spend days, often weeks, trying to find the best combination of songs to make up an album. I wanted to keep people interested and take them on a 40 minute journey.
I’ve made wrong song choices and killed albums. I wont tell which album! It was very, very important which song followed which song. Now I approach a concert in the same way. You have 1000, 2000, 5000 people coming with you and you have to capture them in the first ten or fifteen minutes.

HHMM: You always had such a distinctive singing voice – was it a relief to find that it was still intact after such a long time away from performing?

RH : It ‘s a miracle! It’s amazing that I can still sing. In fact I’m singing better today than I did in Supertramp. Some of the vocal tracks on Supertramp songs cause me to cringe. I am fortunate that my voice still gets the notes very easily. But I think what is important is that inside myself I feel very whole and more confident and complete and that comes through in my voice and that touches people. I think part of my job as an artist is to express my emotions and have people feel that.

HHMM : It’s been well documented that you left the band to concentrate of being a parent, but what motivated you to return?

RH : When I left the band it was a very difficult decision but I realised that I had to follow my inner guidance or my heart. I realised that I couldn’t learn to be a parent and be around my children as they were growing up and also continue with Supertramp being the all-consuming thing that it had been. Something had to give.
Ironically the time away from the music industry was actually very, very good for me because it gave me a new perspective on what the industry was and the entertainment industry as a whole. So now with my kids grown up and running on their own feet my heart was calling me to start performing again. When I came back to the stage I found that I had changed over the years and I still had a lot to give and the songs were still very much alive in peoples hearts and memories. I feel that at 59, I’m kind of in the prime of my life.

HHMM: I understand there’s quite a stockpile of unreleased songs – do you have firm intentions for these?

RH: I would love to get them out because a lot of them are very, very good songs. I’d love to find a way to get them out. I don’t know how or when though. I do play a few in concerts but for the most part people still want to hear the Supertramp songs which they have a strong relationship with.

HHMM : How have you found the new recording technology? The Supertramp albums must have been really labour intensive whereas now they would be a lot easier to make.

RH : It has made all things possible really as far as experimenting. But it’s a blessing and a curse in a way. It’s very easy to play a part and have the computer correct it and make it exact. Unfortunately that takes all the human element out of it when you can do that. If you do that on all the instruments then everything starts sounding perfect but you take the humanness out of it. But I do love computers and what you can do with them. I just think that what is missing a lot these days is the heart and the passion and the emotion.

Dates

April 4, Byron Bay, Bluesfest
April 6, Melbourne, Palais Theatre
April 9, Sydney, Enmore Theatre
April 11, Newcastle, The Civic Theatre

Roger Hodgson and 10cc Combine

Roger Hodgson from Supertramp and 10cc will together perform on a double bill at theatre sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne. Both bands are in Australia for Bluesfest held in Byron Bay over Easter 2010.

This is a really interesting show. Both Supertramp and 10cc are probably under-rated which is a strange thing to say about bands that sold millions of records and had large numbers of really big hits.

But listening to their songs now you cant deny that they were both genuinely talented purveyors of interesting, brilliantly conceived pop music that managed to blend successful commerciality with startlingly good  musicality.

Roger Hodgson must be  recognised as a gifted composer, songwriter and lyricist. As the voice, writer and arranger of most of Supertramp’s greatest hits that led to more than 60 million record sales, he gave us remarkably enduring songs like: Give a Little Bit,  Dreamer, It’s Raining Again, Take the Long Way Home, The Logical Song,  Breakfast In America, and Fool’s Overture.

Take a moment and think about those songs – they are seriously great songs.

Hodgson co-founded  Supertramp in 1969 and was with them for 14 years. He wrote and sang most of the classic hits that brought Supertramp worldwide acclaim. Roger recently received 2 awards from ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) for his songs being in the top played songs in their repertory, proving that they have indeed stood the test of time.

It’s a similar story with 10cc. With 26 million albums sold, and hits like  I’m Not in Love, Rubber Bullets, The Wall Street Shuffle, Life Is A Minestrone, Art For Arts Sake, Good Morning Judge and The Things We Do for Love , as well as the strangely beautiful I’m Mandy Fly Me, its obvious that 10cc are one of Britain’s most original and innovative pop and rock bands. There’s a lot more to them than Dreadlock Holiday!! Noted for their studio polish, advanced musicianship, impeccable vocal performances, and clever lyrics that contributed to a style later dubbed “art pop,” 10cc first became successful for their classic singles that often parodied classic rock styles or satirised modern life.

The band’s original incarnation—a quartet comprised of Mancunians Lol Crème, Kevin Godley, Eric Stewart, and Graham Gouldman—10cc earned critical respect and public acclaim for many of their singles which showcased the band members’ talents as pop musicians, singers, and songwriters while incorporating studio techniques and instrumental virtuosity more commonly associated with the English progressive art-rock bands of the same era.

Here’s the catch – he current line-up includes only Graham Gouldman from the original line-up along with now long time members Rick Fenn and Paul Burgess, joined by Mick Wilson and Mike Stevens.

That’s a bit of a worry – although there’s no doubt that they wouldn’t have got through the quality controllers at Bluesfest if it was anything less than worthwhile. I think Bluesfest has earned our respect at that level.

Palais Theatre Melbourne –Tuesday April 06, 2010

Enmore Theatre Sydney – Friday April 09, 2010