Jethro Tull World Tour 2007
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
Wow.
Just… wow.
What a great concert! Great acoustic pieces, and hard rocking songs too. You can tell the guys are getting older, but I love geezer rock. They played a lot of their less well-known pieces, such “King Henry’s Madrigal” and “My God,” as well as a new song and also “The Water Carrier” from Ian Anderson’s solo album, “The Secret Language of Birds.” Ian produced a new arrangement of “Aqualung” which added much flute. While it was an interesting and good arrangement, I think the audience would have preferred to listen to them play the album version.
The concert was in two sets, separated by a 20-minute intermission. The first set was more acoustic, showing off “Velvet Green.” The second set was more classic rock. It ended with Crest of a Knave’s “Budapest,” which is a technically challenging, genre-spanning song that is simply great. The one-song encore consisted of “Locomotive Breath” - which my brother, who accompanied me to the concert, had been hoping to hear.
Ian introduced many of the songs with an often-humorous backstory and/or history lesson. One of my favorite parts of the evening was when the band (sans Ian) played a hard-rocking instrumental piece from one of Martin Barre’s solo albums.
There were some technical difficulties, which the band was able to cover over very successfully. On the other hand, the musicianship simply excelled. Martin’s guitar-playing was incredible, if under-utilized. The new keyboard/accordian/darbooka player, John O’Hara was a welcome addition to the band. Doane Perry, the token American, while mostly hidden behind the drum kit (except for when he played the bongos on “Fat Man” and “Water Carrier”), did some amazing work. The new bass player, David Goodier, can obviously play. He also chimed in on the glockenspiel and the darbooka. However, when it came time for the bass solo on “Bouree,” he …well, let’s just say I didn’t “get” what he was trying to do. Ian’s flute playing was excellent, as usual, but it appeared he was struggling with vocals.
All in all, it was one of the better concerts I’ve seen.
Update 11-16-07: Here’s another blogger’s review of the same concert.
