PARIS

This GREAT Supertramp's live album is a double LP record. The sound is excellent, and the instruments are very well balanced. There is a pleasant live atmosphere and bottom low frequency sound, with just the right amount of ambient echo, so that it gives you the impression that you really attend this show! It seems that the electric guitars are slightly more distorted and hard rock than on the studio album. On "School", you don't know if the young girl's shout is from the excited crowd or pre-recorded like on the studio album. The French crowd is favorably responding. The chosen tracks are obviously sure values: "School", "Logical song", "Bloody well right", "From now on", "Hide in your shell", "Dreamer", "Take a long way home" and "Breakfast in America", among others. The famous French spoken words "(Bonsoir Paris et bienvenue a une soiree avec Supertramp! Nous sommes très heureux de jouer a Paris)", just before "The Logical song", are quite friendly! How about the other charming French words about the breakfast taken by the musician before the "Breakfast in America" song begins? "Hiding in your shell" and "Fool's overture" are particularly remarkable. This is a quality live album.

Rating: 4.5 stars

I have always said that in order for a band to record a live album, there are three steps to be taken religiously: the sound quality should be exceptional. That means the arrangements aside what the band played in the studio should be completely different and impeccably orchestrated in order to offer an enjoyable performance. Secondly, the instrumentation should vary from the original formula by adding up special features far beyond from what the band is used to do in the studio: backing vocals, classical instruments, improvised guitar/drum solos, etc. And last but not least important: not to rely in live recordings to bounce back in business when the lack of creativity and ingenious start to hold back the band.

There, with all that said, let's get down to it. "Paris" is a 2 CD set piece, recorded live at the City of Lights on November 29th, 1979; that seemed to be a step ahead of what we were inevitably going to listen to in the early 80's. I have always been so harsh on myself about considering this SUPERTRAMP work as a "great" live album, but I rather get off me when I give it the rating of "average" or even "ok".

The SUPERTRAMP guys did their homework with this. They played the classics and the oldies. "Breakfast in America" and "The Logical Song" were assumed to be played rigorously and they sounded off pretty well. It would've been ironic for the band not to shine in Paris, but somehow they managed to do so in a very peculiar way. It's your call for this album, not that I'm arrogant, but there isn't anything close to the term "impressive" inside of it. If you already got this album, you better want to spend your money wisely "From Now On".

This a good album live but nothing dynamic. It is much better to see Supertramp live than hear a live recording of them. It gets a bit diluted on the recorded versions. In saying that ' Assylum', ' School', ' Rudy' and ' Crime of the Century' are all great versions. ' You started laughing', not on an album is nice to have as well.

It seems that the "mega-success" of the "Breakfast in America"album had an enormous pressure for the band. I have read some interviews with Roger Hodgson done in the 90s, and he considered that the "Breakfast..." tour was the time when the band started to have some personal frictions, and the fun to play together started to diminish. But this "Paris" live album is very good, and being a live recording from the 70s I still consider it a very good recording which sounds better in the CD format (as I listened to this album in CD format in a FM Radio station broadcast some years ago). I think that this album, which has 7 songs from the "Crime..." album, could have been better if the band and the record label included songs like "Give a little bit", "Goodbye Stranger", "Even in the Quietest Moments" instead of almost all the songs from the "Crime..." album (except one:"If Everyone was listening").Still, this is an interesting live album, with very good live versions of "Ain`t nobody but me", "The Logical Song", "You started laughing" (which also was recorded in the studio and released as a B side of one of the singles of the "Crisis?..." album, but this live version is the only available version of this song in an album), "Hide in your shell", "From now on", "Rudy", "A Soap Box`s Opera", "Take the Long Way Home", "Fool`s Overture", and an energetic "Crime of the Century". The original double L.P. had inner sleeves with very good photographs of the band playing in concert (I don`t know if the CD package also includes these photos). I can hear several keyboard players playing at the same time in some songs, so John Helliwell also played keyboards as some of the photos show. But I don`t know if the band also used some programmable keyboards because in some albums and in this album too they gave credits for "Oberheim programming" to some people.But it is clear that they used some "pre-recorded tapes" in some songs like "Rudy" (train and train station sounds, a violin), , "Take the Long Way Home" (in the Harmonica/Clarinet solos, it sounds to me that they "doubled" them with pre-recorded tapes), "School" (children`s voices), "A Soapbox`s Opera" (the choir), "Asylum" (the two final piano notes) and "Fool`s Overture" (Churchill`s voice and other voices). The presence of Roger Hodgson singing his own songs in this album makes this album their best official live album.

Recorded during the following tour after the highly sucessful "Breakfast In America" album in November 1979, this is my favoriet live album from Supertramp and captures their tight live perfomance perfectly. The songs performed here are very faithful to to original songs, unlike other progbands who like to improvise them a bit (Gentle Giant being a perfect example), but they sound really fresh and renovated. Almost all of "Crime of the Century" is featured here as well as a new composition by Rick Davies named" You Started Laughing", a tune perfectly in their usual tradition but less interesting. This one is definitely essential for fans especially and has become one of my alltime favorite live albums over the years.

"Paris" - After the huge success of "Breakfast In America" it seemed like a good time to release a live album. It may have been good timing considering the success of several studio albums; the only problem was that they had the difficult task of duplicating all of the sounds produced in the studio. Unfortunately, they could not reproduce all those wonderful layers of sound in a live setting and the result was that they did not sound like the authoritative progressive rock band that they once were. It was more like a stripped down bare bones rock band missing their pomp and flair. This is a flat performance; although the remastered sound always makes things better, it did not help this recording.

It's another enjoyable rock concert by Supertramp. With my unfamiliarity of who's who in the band I also enjoy this live album especially on the live vibes generated from the concert. It seems thousands of crowd who watched the band on stage were really enjoyin the show and the band communicate very well with them - in France, of course. The opening track "School" is not a song I'm familiar with but it's a nice song with great piano and woodwind, combined with clear lead vocals. As the sleeve says this tour has been a hard one - 108 shows so far; you can imagine how tiring the tour was. But when it comes into recorded materials I don't see any deficiency of the band performing their music. In fact, this concert sounds like a studio album because the sonic quality is top notch!

The second track "Ain't Nobody But Me" is another enjoyable track combining saxophone and woodwinds in the body of the music that make this composition is rich in textures. Guitar work which resembles classic rock style is also another interesting part. During the break the band communicate with the crowd :"Bonjeur Paris!". Next is the famous "The Logical Song" which is performed excellently and applauded by the crowd. The opening part of this song, where vocal and piano are combined together is really nice. "Bloody Well Right" demonstrates some exploration of the band's music into jazz style through the use of piano. Nice piano solo. "Breakfast In America" is my favorite and it's performed excellently here.

Disc Two starts with a bit of piano improvisations on "Dreamer" continued beautifully with "Rudy". "A Soapbox Opera" has a catchy melody accentuated with piano work and excellent vocal. There is a bit flavor of symphonic style here plus female choirs in the middle of the track. "Asylum" continues the music with piano-based composition whereby the piano sound is like a clavinet. It flows nicely to "Take The Long Way Home". "Fool's Overture" is the longest duration song with excellent piano and keyboard work at the opening part. Am not quite sure from which album this song is but for sure, if I look at the structure and style, this is definitely a prog one. The music flows beautifully with piano as main rhythm section and powerful vocal brings the music into multi verses with different moods. It's really a beautifully composed music - I'm wandering how the studio version sounds like? I'd better find out for comparison.

It's definitely a good live concert album with excellent sonic quality, beautiful composition with nice melody. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

The Supertramp fan had to wait for quite a long time to hear a live album from this wonderful band. This tour (as most of their tours before) is concentrated on "Crime". Since it is a masterpiece, I have little problem with this.

Seven out of eight tracks from this album (only "If Everyone Was Listening" was skipped). There is one unreleased album track "You Started Laughing" and I really wonder why they played it : it is the poorest song of this double live album. I would rather cry than laugh when I hear it !

I am also a bit frustrated that there are only three songs from "Crisis" which is one of my fave of the band (second to "Crime" IMO) with no sign from "Lady" for instance. This was the supporting tour for "Breakfast" and only three songs from the album are played "Take The Long Way Home", "Breakfast in America" and "The Logical Song". I guess that indicates than even then, the fans (as the band) were not over-enthusiastic about this release.

From the two songs from "Even ...", there is a wonderful rendition of "Fool's Overture" : all the studio effects are well reproduced on stage (taped I guess) and this is of course the highlight of this live album. The sound is very good and the audience really seem to appreciate this fantastic number during the show.

Some good numbers from the era are missing though. "Goodbye Stranger", "Even In The Quietest Moments, "Give a Little Bit" and "Another Man's Woman". It was interesting to note that a week earlier, A&M Records (Canada) released a publicity memo stating that a "triple album" would possibly be released of an ENTIRE Supertramp concert.

The entire Paris show was filmed and although clips of eg. "Dreamer" have been seen with Helliwell lying on his back on top of the grand piano whilst singing backing vocals, the entire footage hasn't been released commercially. What a pity ! Roger's daughter, Heidi was born back stage at 7.45pm 11th April 1979, just 10 to 15 minutes before her dad was due on stage at 8pm. She was born in Roger's motor home !

Even if those live tracks lack sound a lot like the studio ones, it is a very good live album. Four stars.

Hope you can't spot any differences

"Paris" is a live album recorded when Supertramp were in full flight, and attracting enormously large audiences. The tracks are taken from the period covering "Crime of the century" through to "Breakfast in America", by far their most successful and creative phase.

There was never much room in Supertramp's live act for improvisation or tomfoolery. The over-riding objective was always to perform the tracks as mirror images of their studio counterparts, to the extent that if you could not tell the difference, the performance was a success (my words, not theirs!). This live collection is thus a sort of "Best of" album including as it does their most successful and most popular tracks. The "Crime of the century" album is naturally heavily featured, with no less than seven of the eight tracks present but dispersed throughout the set ("If everyone was listening" is the missing one!).

There is one rarity here though, "You start laughing". This was originally released as a single B side, but did not appear on a studio album prior to the "Retrospectacle" compilation (the studio re-masters are stubbornly devoid of bonus tracks). It is hardly worth buying the album for, but it does at least add some interest. The version of "Two of us" is notably shorter than the "Crisis what crisis" original, effectively serving as an intro to the magnificent closing "Crime of the century" title track.

The cheering during "Fool's overture" reminds us that this was a visual as well as audio experience, the screen effects which accompanied the performance requiring the use of some imagination from the listener. A hint is given on the inner sleeve picture collages, which include the band playing in front of a huge "Crime of the century" sleeve picture.

The occasional between song banter, sometimes in French, is presumably by John Anthony Helliwell, who acted as master of ceremonies during the band's gig. Given the faithful nature of the performances here, it's questionable as to what purpose this album serves. The original albums are still widely available, as are various compilations. An enjoyable, well recorded album, but far from essential.

Paris is a good live album that may be considered even a solid best of collection to those lacking their studio albums. Almost entire Crime of the Century is presented here. Performance is very technical and almost perfect, which is the major weakness for me. Apart from few Rick Davies' occasional uttering in French, there is not much of a live atmosphere. This is an enjoyable listening and decent capture of the band's most productive years, but nothing more than that.

Double live Supertramp album is in fact the collection of their greatest hits (to time). Every band's fan will have many songs he loves to hear, but is it enough for double live album be recorded?

I can't say nothing wrong about this work, but at the same time there are not too much reasons for purchasing of this album. I really like Supertramp work from 70-s, but after listening of this album I decided, that I prefer their studio work. Whenever familiar songs sound there at best as copies of studio recordings ( and often studio versions have much more better arrangements and sound, what is not strange at all), and there almost absent drive or energetic, so beloved on good live releases, It's difficult to find a reason to have this album (unless you're collector).

For sure, sound quality is acceptable, and it is a pleasure to listen band's early catalogue once again, but too bulk and not very inspired musicianship doesn't add pluses to band's reputation.

To be honest, I can recommend good compilation instead of this live work.

The unexpected success of Breakfast In America made Supertramp a hot item for over the next few years and the band's label A&M made sure to make the best out of the situation by suggesting a live album release. This idea did make sense considering that Supertramp had so far not released a single live album. The live concert was recorded during the Breakfast In America tour in November 1979 Paris, France and depicted the band performing a show consisting of mixed material from their past few albums.

The final product is quite decent even though I can't help but wonder how the record would have turned out if it was released following Even In The Quietest Moments.... I know that it would mean that tracks from Breakfast In America wouldn't be included, but the possibility of including a few tracks from the debut album does appeal to me more than just performing an uninspired rehash of the studio takes from a success record just to please the mainstream audience. In fact, the only moments where I truly feel a sense of inspiration on the part of the band is where they perform compositions from Crime Of A Century and they perform seven out of the total of eight compositions featured on that release. If that isn't considered a tribute to that album then I really don't know what is!

Paris is a sad album for me since it marks a conclusion to the magnificent chapter in Supertramp's history, a fare well to the '70s sound if you will. With the departure of Roger Hodgson meant that the band would also lose at least 50% of their writing talent and the great soprano voice. All this makes this album all the more noteworthy even if we take into account the promotional aspects of this release and the fact that Supertramp aren't really known for their spectacular live act.

***** star songs: The Logical Song (3:57) Hide In Your Shell (6:55) Take The Long Way Home (4:57) Two Of Us (1:25)

**** star songs: School (5:42) Bloody Well Right (7:23) Breakfeast In America (2:57) Dreamer (3:44) Rudy (7:09) Asylum (6:51) Fools Overture (10:58) Crime Of The Century (6:31)

*** star songs: Ain't Nobody But Me (5:24) You Started Laughing (4:02) From Now On (7:05) A Soapbox Opera (4:51)

A piece of history and part of my youth

I remember 1980, I was finishing school and used to go to a movie were promotional films from Rock bands were shown, and then it came, School in Paris, what a presentation, simply delightful, I had heard this songs many times but this was the ultimate version. Until then I wasn't a fan of SUPERTRAMP and only had Even in the Quietest Moments mostly for Give a Little Bit, but next Wednesday didn't went to classes in order to be one of the first to buy Paris on the days that record stores were the only way to get music, but there was such expectation, that I got one of the last copies.

At the end of the day I was suspended for skipping school, but it was worth, the album is simply delightful, even songs that are too acute to my ears like Dreamer and The Logical Song or others that I never liked as Ain't Nobody But Me or Bloody Well Right sounded wonderful.

And of course masterpieces like Fools Overture and the dramatic Crime Of The Century turned this double LP into the essential SUPERTRAMP release. I won't make a song by song review in this case being that we are familiar with all the material from their studio albums, but will say that even if you are not a fan of the band, Paris is a magical piece of art that every fan of good music should own.

I still believe that SUPERTRAMP is not a Prog band and should be in Prog Related, but this album is a masterpiece of Rock history and deserves no less than 4 solid stars that should be 4.5 if the system allowed it. What I can't still understand is why they didn't played Give a Little Bit, an all-time favorite of the band and fans.

Merely the absence of If Everyone Was Listening and the shift in the placement of Asylum prevents the Paris show from effectively being a live version of Crime of the Century, with songs from the subsequent albums slipped in at appropriate places along the way. With excellent performances all round, the band do justice to their better studio albums from this era (Crime of the Century and Even In the Quietest Moments) and, to my ears at least, improve on the material from the era's less inspiring albums (Crisis, What Crisis? and Breakfast In America).

Fun stuff and definitely worth a listen if you want the definitive live document of Supertramp's most commercially and creatively successful period, but at the same time with repeated listens I find that the Crime of the Century material still stands head and shoulders over the rest of what's on offer, to the point where I'd rather just listen to the studio album again. Increasingly, I find myself drawn to the conclusion that Supertramp only caught lightning in a bottle once with that album, with perhaps a few after-crackles showing up in later singles.

Review Nº 605

"Paris" is the debut live album of Supertramp and was released in 1980. It was recorded on Supertramp's "Breakfast In America" tour in 1979 in Paris, France at the Pavillon de Paris. It was originally going to be called "Roadworks" and was to be recorded in the Quebec City in Canada, but their record label A&M wanted it was recorded in a mainstream city.

"Paris" was originally released as double vinyl record and was a big success that reached 8 on the Billboard Pop Albums Chart in 1980 and immediately went Gold. The live version of "Dreamer" was a big success hitting U.S. Top 20.

"Paris" has sixteen tracks. Of the six studio albums of Supertramp released until that moment, only tracks from four of those albums are represented here, I mean, "Crime Of The Century" from 1974, "Crisis? What Crisis?" from 1975, "Even In The Quietest Moments..." from 1977 and "Breakfast In America" from 1979. From the first two studio albums of the band, "Supertramp" from 1970 and "Indelibly Stamped" from 1971, none of their tracks are represented on "Paris".

So, from "Crime Of The Century" we have "School", "Bloody Well Right", "Hide In Your Shell", "Dreamer", "Rudy", "Asylum" and "Crime Of The Century". From "Crisis? What Crisis?" we have "Ain't Nobody But Me", "A Soapbox Opera" and "Two Of Us". From "Even In The Quietest Moments?" we have "From Now On" and "Fool's Overture". From "Breakfast In America" we have "The Logical Song", "Breakfast In America" and "Take The Long Way Home". We have also "You Started Laughing", which was originally the B side of their single "Lady" of "Crisis? What Crisis?".

About the tracks, "School" is a fantastic song, one of the best composed by the band. "Bloody Well Right" is almost a hard rock song, for their type of music, with a little funky rhythm. "Hide In Your Shell" is a masterpiece of the melodic progressive rock with a supreme musical melodic structure. "Asylum" is an interesting and nice melodic song, well composed and good orchestration. "Dreamer" is an irresistible melodic song, one of the most popular singles made by them. "Rudy" is one of the most progressive, sophisticated and elaborated songs ever composed by them. "Crime Of The Century" is a wonderful magnum opus with a great orchestration. "Ain't Nobody But Me" is great song, a mix of rock and jazz influences. "A Soapbox Opera" is a melodic song, with orchestra and choir, and has great arrangements. "Two Of Us" is a song with a nice melody where the acoustic guitar and vocals prevail. "From Now On" is a nice mellow ballad full of great keyboard and saxophone works. "Fool's Overture" is a great magnum opus and is probably their most progressive song in their entire career. "The Logical Song" is a typical classic Supertramp's song with wonderful harmony, great vocals, good keyboards and a nice touch of sax. "Breakfast In America" is a classic Spertramp's song, one the most commercial and a big hit on the radio stations. "Take The Long Way Home" represents another great moment with the saxophone and the piano in evidence. "You Started Laughing" isn't bad but it's less interesting to me.

About the performance of the live show, the first disc of the double live album shows the two different sides of Supertramp, the catchy commercial tunes of Hodgson and the bombastic compositions of Davies. The concert starts with the harmonica of "School". From then, it's a constant switch between Davies' and Hodgson's compositions with the powerful "Ain't Nobody But Me", the mega hit "The Logical Song", an extended version of "Bloody Well Right", "Breakfast In America", the previously unreleased "You Started Laughing", "Hide In Your Shell" and finally "From Now On". The second disc contains another two hits, "Dreamer" and "Take The Long Way Home". The rest are filled with several less familiar tunes, again nicely split between the typical Hodgson tunes like "A Soapbox Opera" and Davies' compositions like "Asylum" and "Rudy", which is an incredible track. The 11- minute "Fool's Overture" is a perfect example of diversity and "tension building" and features the famous speech of Churchill. In a strong contrast with this epic was the very short "Two Of Us". The final song, the encore for the show, was the title track of the "Crime Of The Century" album, which had almost been played in its entirety. We may say that it was a perfect closing to the concert.

Conclusion: "Paris" was released when the band was at the peak of their fame and when they attracting enormously large audiences. The sound of the album is excellent, the instruments are very well balanced and about the choice of the songs for the concert and also about their alignment, I have no objection. The songs are performed live practically equal of their studio versions. In reality, it never was much room in Supertramp's live for improvisations. Usually, I prefer that a live album be performed a bit different from the original studio works. However, I really think that "Paris" is a very good live album which represents the best period of the band. And, above all, it's a very important album for almost all their fans because it's the only live album released by the band, in those days, with the presence of Roger Hodgson. So, "Paris" is, in my humble opinion, a necessary and excellent addition on the group's discography, really.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)