By PHILIP S WOLF
Back in 1989, I was a bit of a bootleg junkie and a couple of record store owners in Providence, Rhode Island kept my phone number on speed-dial and called me up whenever a new rare boot arrived at their shops. It was fun to find bootleg CD's of: The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, The Who and Dylan tucked behind the checkout counters at these little stores waiting for my dollars. I was quick on the draw to adopt more than a few of these less than legal discs.
"Supertramp Live '88" is no bootleg but, it's so rare it might as well be called a bootleg. The story behind this disc manufactured by A & M Records in Canada, goes like this: "Live '88" is a 60 minute CD that features 13 tracks from Supertramp's early tours of winter/spring of 1988 in South America, Canada and then on to Europe. In the middle of the European dates Rick Davies had a two track cassette tape recorder plugged directly into the mix board for his own personal listening experience. Rick, was quite pleased as how good his band sounded on this low-fi cassette.
"You Started Laughing" opens the show and it flows directly into: "It's Alright." Old favorites: "Bloody Well Right" "Breakfast in America" "From Now On" "Oh Darling" "Just Another Nervous Wreck" "The Logicial Song" & "Crime of the Century" are found right here. Newer songs: "Not The Moment" & "Free As a Bird" share space in the set and sound just as great as the older material found here. The big news to report about here is that this disc features music not writen by Supertramp members as the blues numbers: "I'm Not Your Hoochie Coochie Man" & "Don't You Lie To Me" (by Willie Dixon and Hudson Whitaker) are a part of this set and as weird is this may sound they are a special highlight as they are so diferent from the normal Supertramp tunes that you would expect to hear.
So why isn't this a five-star review? It's simple...SOUND QUALITY!
This is as close to flat-recorded board tape as you are ever gonna hear. The band sounds distant and the dynamic range is not very wide. The qualities of this tape are much to Rick's liking as he compares it to a Jazz or Blues field recording from the 1940's and it's raw form appeals to him over any digital recording that Supertramp would use in a pinch to capture the might of their live shows. I transfered this CD to a casette tape back in 1989, and played in my Walkman where it sounded great. Today, on my home stereo on Bose speakers it's a much different story as it leaves a lot of sound to be desired that ain't gonna reach my ears due to the low audio of this un-doctored two track source tape.
The simple fact is that if this were recorded on 48-track mobile recording truck and the entire show has been included we would be listening to a five-star double disc set of a really tight edition of Supertramp playing at their peak live. This is a band that kept going after many line-up changes (no Roger Hodgson found here!) But, it shows that drive and spirit that took this band to the top of the pop charts in the late seventies. I still like this set but it's best played on a cheap boombox for the best audio results.
Three & 1/2 Stars!
"Supertramp Live '88" is no bootleg but, it's so rare it might as well be called a bootleg. The story behind this disc manufactured by A & M Records in Canada, goes like this: "Live '88" is a 60 minute CD that features 13 tracks from Supertramp's early tours of winter/spring of 1988 in South America, Canada and then on to Europe. In the middle of the European dates Rick Davies had a two track cassette tape recorder plugged directly into the mix board for his own personal listening experience. Rick, was quite pleased as how good his band sounded on this low-fi cassette.
"You Started Laughing" opens the show and it flows directly into: "It's Alright." Old favorites: "Bloody Well Right" "Breakfast in America" "From Now On" "Oh Darling" "Just Another Nervous Wreck" "The Logicial Song" & "Crime of the Century" are found right here. Newer songs: "Not The Moment" & "Free As a Bird" share space in the set and sound just as great as the older material found here. The big news to report about here is that this disc features music not writen by Supertramp members as the blues numbers: "I'm Not Your Hoochie Coochie Man" & "Don't You Lie To Me" (by Willie Dixon and Hudson Whitaker) are a part of this set and as weird is this may sound they are a special highlight as they are so diferent from the normal Supertramp tunes that you would expect to hear.
So why isn't this a five-star review? It's simple...SOUND QUALITY!
This is as close to flat-recorded board tape as you are ever gonna hear. The band sounds distant and the dynamic range is not very wide. The qualities of this tape are much to Rick's liking as he compares it to a Jazz or Blues field recording from the 1940's and it's raw form appeals to him over any digital recording that Supertramp would use in a pinch to capture the might of their live shows. I transfered this CD to a casette tape back in 1989, and played in my Walkman where it sounded great. Today, on my home stereo on Bose speakers it's a much different story as it leaves a lot of sound to be desired that ain't gonna reach my ears due to the low audio of this un-doctored two track source tape.
The simple fact is that if this were recorded on 48-track mobile recording truck and the entire show has been included we would be listening to a five-star double disc set of a really tight edition of Supertramp playing at their peak live. This is a band that kept going after many line-up changes (no Roger Hodgson found here!) But, it shows that drive and spirit that took this band to the top of the pop charts in the late seventies. I still like this set but it's best played on a cheap boombox for the best audio results.
Three & 1/2 Stars!
As it seems for great Rick Davies not to have been pleased in years of this recording and have banished it from the hands of the future supertramp fans, in fact, at the first time, as it appears written on the record, he was so pleased of the true color of sound emerging in this compilation: many years have passed and I still find amazing to listen to the vinyl recording and the cassette recording: the vinyl appeared in Spain is a bit lower in speed than 33 revolutions, and the cassette includes all the songs in the cd that doesn't appear in the other (Not the moment, especially, which is one of my favorites for ever and ever): and it does a pleasing effect to the ears. In addition, hearing a Supertramp album that insinuates the music emerging from a not annoying sound of continuate screams of the people, makes, as I see it, a mysterious effect that becomes a real experience, a new one, in all the known and unknown little and big "tricks" of wisdom in this band.
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