The idea of a live album concentrating entirely on an album a band already done and nothing else might seem like a boring idea. It would be like Genesis following The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway with a live album playing the album in its entirety or Pink Floyd following The Wall likewise (luckily something like Pink Floyd's Pulse did include an entire performance of The Dark Side of the Moon, but the 2-CD set also included a bunch of their various other hits or popular favorites). Harmonium, from Quebec, did just that. In November 1976 they released their final album, L'Heptade, clearly their most ambitious album and from a proghead's standpoint, their most progressive effort. For the mainstream Quebec public in the 1970s, it became the biggest selling double album by a Quebec band (although sales were not as strong as their previous albums due to it being frequently inaccessible and no short, catchy songs on the lines of "Pour un Instant"). By 1978 Harmonium was no more, Serge Fiori figured the band couldn't go any further than what they did on L'Heptade. In 1980 En Tournée was released. It was a live recording from 1977 in Vancouver. What they do here is perform L'Heptade in its entirety. Serge Fiori greets the English speaking audience with a "Bon jour" and starts speaking in French. The audience was rather indifferent about it, and it was when the music was actually playing that the audience was more receptive. Since Neil Chotem's orchestration is naturally absent (since hiring an orchestra for live performances would be costly, just ask ELP and Rick Wakeman), it proves they can perform the album without the help of orchestration. So that means Serge Locat includes more synths and the occasional Mellotron to make up for it. What makes this album essential is many of the songs are not straight-up versions, they take on new routes, and include jams or arrange the songs a bit different from the original. "Le Corridor", for example, includes another vocal passage where the original featured the phased Mellotron and acoustic guitar. "Le Premier Ciel" is perhaps my favorite version, they extend it much longer and there's some great jamming not found on the original. There's a bit of a jazzy feel on this album, since guitarist Robert Stanley was now a full-on member (he was only on some of the songs on L'Heptade as previous member Michel Normandeau had left halfway), I have a feeling he had a more jazz-oriented background than Michel Normandeau.It's nice to see them performing in Vancouver, given the socio-political/linguistic divide of Canada between Quebec and the rest of Canada. French singing acts were very unlikely to break out of the Quebec borders, unless they did what Celine Dion did and started recording in English. It also clearly shows through my experience of meeting Canadians, those from Quebec know of Harmonium very well (and other similar French singing artists), and ones from the English speaking provinces never heard of them.Anyways, there are people who actually prefer this live album over the studio original, and I can see why, perhaps they like it better because the orchestrations don't get in the way. For me I like them about the same (since I do like Neil Chotem's orchestration on L'Heptade), maybe a couple songs I liked better off L'Heptade over this, and vice versa.