ANNOUNCEMENT: Experience the Magic of a Parisian Morning with Supertramp – A Breakfast Event Like No Other!

Breakfast in America was a breakout album for Supertramp in 1979. Nearly a decade had passed since the English band’s debut, but it was “The Logical Song” and the album’s other singles that made them a household name in the U.S.

An energetic show at the Pavillon de Paris in December 1979 was recorded, and the band’s original sound engineer and co-producer Pete Henderson has created a new stereo remix from the original multi-track tapes. The concert is out now in 2-CD and 3-LP formats. Both contain the same tracks. The latter is the version that I review here. On my vintage stereo and turntable that date from when people listened to music on high-quality stereo speakers in a room, the vinyl sounds well recorded, mixed and mastered.

Breakfast in Paris with Supertramp

The first of the three LPs includes the hits “The Logical Song” and “Goodbye Stranger.” Oddly, they don’t elicit much initial reaction from the crowd, which seems strange since the album had been out for the better part of a year. I don’t know exactly how the concert was recorded, though. In any case both songs feel rushed and a little thin. After that the band digs more into the music and achieves a fuller sound. The performances of “School” from Crime of the Century, the band’s UK breakthrough album in 1974, and “Ain’t Nobody But Me” from 1975’s Crisis? What Crisis? are more full-bore and convincing.

Side B opens with a muscular take on Breakfast in America‘s cheeky title track, another big hit, followed by a funky version of the quirky “Bloody Well Right” with vocals that recall the disco-era Bee Gees. It’s gratifying to hear tracks from the band’s earlier releases threaded through the concert; my copies of these albums were cassettes, which are long gone, and I hadn’t heard some of the songs in decades. It’s nice to experience them with the energy of live performance, too, complete with the slight loosenings of rhythm and imperfections of vocal intonation that remind you these were real, fallible human beings on stage.

“From Now On,” which closes LP 1, is a highlight of the concert. Those lyrics really spoke to my adolescent heart: “Guess we’ll always have to be / Living in a fantasy / That’s the way it’s got to be / From now on.” It feels like a reflection on relationships, but it could also be a metaphor for rock stardom.

“Child of Vision,” a prog-rock classic driven by furious sixteenth-note electric-piano chords, sits on LP 2 next to “Even in the Quietest Moments,” which owes a lot to the softer side of Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. Together these two numbers show contrasting sides of Roger Hodgson’s songwriting spirit: pop experimentation and balladry. His “A Soap Box Opera,” on the same side, is a kind of celestial fusion of the two instincts.

Two Brains

Of the band’s two songwriters, Hodgson wrote more Supertramp hits than the bluesier Rick Davies, who’s probably best remembered now for the once-ubiquitous “Goodbye Stranger.” (“School” is the pair’s only co-write in the set.) But Davies’ bluesy sensibility is just as memorable, and it’s in full bloom in “Asylum,” a guitar-heavy track that contrasts with the band’s more typical keyboard-dominated sound. Davies’ own knack for balladry shines on the sentimental love song “Downstream,” a less-well-known gem in the Supertramp catalog.

The band drew from its pre-Breakfast albums also for the 12-string-driven, sax-spiced “Give a Little Bit” and for “Dreamer,” one of Hodgson’s distinctive keyboard showpieces. The former remains in today’s zeitgeist because of its use in TV commercials, and that lush 12-string chordal riff is ingrained in so many brains.

LP 3 includes a seven-minute “Rudy,” a churning Davies number from Crime of the Century. The audience is thoroughly into the set at this point, and the song is another of the recording’s highlights. The same platter includes Davies’ sizzling country-rock-inspired progger “Another Man’s Woman,” one of my favorite Davies songs, which tails into a frenetic funk jam. It’s followed by “Take the Long Way Home,” the popular Hodgson hand-wringer from Breakfast in America, powered by the band’s trademark two-keyboard onslaught.

I could hardly wait to turn over LP 3 for the symphonic “Fool’s Overture,” the long track that closes Even in the Quietest Moments, complete with wistful sax and recorded church bells and crowd sounds. With this song Supertramp made its biggest progressive-rock statement. Hodgson’s reedy alto is at its most soulful here, the band aggressive and tight.

Hodgson’s sublime acoustic miniature “Two of Us” and Davies’ dramatic title track from Crime of the Century complete what will be a deep journey into nostalgia for Supertramp fans who were of impressionable age during the band’s 1970s heyday. Such folks will want to own this set, whether or not they still have (or can still play) their old vinyl – or cassettes.

Live in Paris ’79 is available now in 2-CD and 3-LP versions and on streaming services.