With a first-rate theatrical show, Ian Anderson proves the average Joe in the ‘developed’ world is still ‘thick as a brick’ after four decades! (2012)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Photos: Jernej Vene

Location: Palasport Di Chiarbola / Trieste / Italy
Concert date: December 1, 2012
Attendance: 1000
Ticket price: €30.00 (stands) / €50.00 (front floor)

With a first-rate theatrical performance, Ian Anderson proved that the average little guy in the ‘developed’ world is still ‘thick as a brick’ even after four decades

Forty years have passed since the legendary prog rockers Jethro Tull, under the flute and vocal command of the streetwise Scottish agro-food strongman Ian Anderson, recorded the conceptual burlesque »Thick As a Brick«, which over the years became something of a benchmark for how to create a first-rate concept masterpiece. Times have, of course, changed radically since then, and sadly not for the better, so Ian felt the urge to record a sequel to »Thick as a Brick«. Subtitled »Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock«, he made it as a solo artist, since his longtime Tull guitar buddy Martin Barre didn’t share the same vision, which means Jethro Tull are currently ‘put in the corner’ indefinitely. The more than slightly controversial move turned out surprisingly well: the new »Thick As a Brick« proved a worthy sequel to the original prog rock masterpiece, and Ian hit the road on a solo tour on which he plays both parts of the »Thick As a Brick« concept live. Besides top-notch musicianship, he serves up a hugely entertaining stage set, the kind that could only have sprouted in his own black-humored ‘backyard garden’.

We got to see that firsthand at his show in Trieste’s Chiarbola hall, where about a year ago we sat through the rather botched show of the ‘weirdo’ version of the legendary Yes. Despite being in his sixties, Ian is still enviably vital for his age and struck his trademark one-legged stance several times again. When he wasn’t singing, he switched keenly between flute and acoustic guitar, once more confirming his long-standing multi-instrumentalist pedigree. Keeping Ian company on stage were longtime Tull buddies: keyboardist and arranger John O’Hara, who with his tousled hair, penguin tailcoat and glasses looked like a mad genius, and the white-haired, calm bassist David Goodier. Barre was replaced by the young Bavarian guitarist Florian Opahle, who did his guitar duties with distinction, even though with his backwoods look from the American Deep South he seemed more like one of the Molly Hatchet guys. Behind the drums, instead of longtime Tull drummer Doane Perry or Ian’s son James Duncan, who has often filled in as the live drummer in the past, sat Scott Hammond.

The biggest shock, though, was the stage presence of singer and actor Ryan O’Donnell, who covered the vocal lines the legendary flutist simply can’t sing anymore. That confirmed the dark premonition of everyone who has had the chance to hear Ian’s increasingly frayed voice live in recent years: the years haven’t spared it in the least, and after the 1985 operation, when he almost lost his voice, it never sounded quite like it used to anyway. Credit where it’s due to O’Donnell, who looked a bit like the legendary actor Tom Baker from the sci-fi series Doctor Who. His voice was uncannily close to Ian’s, and with his costume changes and stage mimicry he delivered a superb acting performance, which, thanks also to Ian’s other stage buddies who threw themselves into their instruments, was a real feast for the eyes. Had O’Donnell put on a fake beard and a wig and squinted one eye, you might have thought for a moment that Ian’s young double was standing up there.

In the first part of the show, which ran more than two hours with a fifteen-minute intermission in the middle, Ian and his musical buddies played the whole of »Thick As a Brick« from 1972. Everyone except Ian, who only appeared once the rest already had their instruments ready to go, came out in threadbare jackets, with brooms and workers’ caps on their heads, like stagehands from a theater at the start of the 20th century. They fussed around a big suitcase in which poor bassist Goodier found, among other things, a condom and a bra. O’Donnell shone a flashlight at him toward the audience, where the two of them then pointed a finger at an imaginary ‘culprit’. The burlesque skit carried on with a projection in which Ian appeared as the psychiatrist Gerald Bostock, the main protagonist of both parts of »Thick As a Brick«. While most of the Italians had no clue what was going on (the crowd that night was a total triumph of gerontocracy, apart from a handful of ‘nerds’, a couple of metalheads and three lonely young women who had probably missed a Lady Gaga show), two Slovenes in the second row kept smirking contentedly at the humorous inserts. The moment Ian appeared on stage, picked up the acoustic guitar and sang the opening verses of »Thick As a Brick«, the hall really boiled over for the first time, although the mostly gray-haired audience, as expected, never got all that loud right up to the end. Midway through the show, Ian again pulled the old cell phone trick, this time with a call from Trans Siberian Orchestra violinist Anna Phoebe, who has collaborated with the famous flutist a few times in the past. Ian invited her to join the band via Skype for a while to carry on with the show, which she did. While playing violin she was busy with her newborn, while a mysterious diver stalked her in the background, one who popped up on the projections several more times that evening. Of course it was a pre-recorded skit, and the mysterious diver strolling through squares and villages was none other than Ian. The original »Thick As a Brick«, which ironically began as a parody of concept albums, is a satire about the child genius Gerald Bostock, whom a corrupt and conservative jury strips of the prize for most talented young writer when they recognize themselves in his socially critical essay, and in it the reflection of the whole depraved, old-fashioned society they serve. Musically, it’s an extremely complex suite of over 40 minutes, with a huge number of unpredictable time changes, improvisations and longer instrumental sections, and no breaks at all, which makes it an extremely demanding undertaking, so it was entirely understandable that Ian’s tired voice couldn’t hold up the whole way. A few times he even rather clumsily ‘flubbed it’, coming in too early over the instrumental backing. Luckily that didn’t happen again in the second half of the show, while he once more did his instrumental duty with distinction and, between the one-legged stance and the encouraging gestures, was the very picture of stage clowning. You could see that the blond guitarist Florian was enjoying himself immensely in the individual guitar solos, where he took center stage and strutted like some eighties guitar hero. Longtime Tull keyboardist O’Hara was in especially good spirits that night, even picking up the accordion in the second part. Individual lines of the lyrics were accompanied directly by witty projections, which peaked in the second part, when it was time for »Thick As a Brick 2«, which didn’t come out as one super-long suite but is made up of several shorter, titled songs. Between the two came the fifteen-minute intermission, which in a snap blew away the forty-year gap between the original concept and its modern sequel, which tells of five possible career fates for the grown-up Bostock. The funniest bit turned out to be the »Banker Bets, Banker Wins« section, during which O’Donnell dressed up as a corrupt banker with the obligatory English bowler hat and walking umbrella, while the background played extremely fitting footage of farm pigs greedily gorging at the trough during the chorus. During »Power of the Spirit« and »Give Till It Hurts«, O’Donnell dressed up as an evangelical TV preacher and collected voluntary donations for the church from the band members, Ian excepted, of course. This time too the diver showed up on the projections several times, finally finding his way out to the sea, while the screen teemed with footage of Ian’s homestead, or rather estate, with a villa and big stretches of farmland. Most important of all, on a walk with his two best buddies, the cat and the dog, he fed his chickens. In the closing stretch of »Thick As a Brick 2«, Ian introduced the band members right there on the projection and thanked the audience for their support. That wrapped up the official part of the show, but not the get-together, since most of the fans would never have forgiven Ian if he hadn’t played the most beloved Tull classic, »Locomotive Breath«. During that one the audience suddenly came alive, leapt to their feet and pushed down to the front of the stage, so even the aunties in fur coats and the old-school rocker uncles in coats reeking of game goulash and wine showed some signs of life.

Ian and his crew surprised us with an unforgettable stage show. Even those of us who hadn’t forgotten how merciless the years have been on his vocal abilities, and who would rather have seen »Thick As a Brick 2« come out as a new Jethro Tull album, with Martin Barre on guitar of course, were thrilled.

Setlist

Thick as a Brick, Part 1
1. Intro (Gerald Bostock visits a psycotherapist)
2. Thick as a Brick
—15 min. intermission—
Thick as a Brick, Part 2
Thick as a Brick 2: Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock?
3. Intro: Visiting St. Cleve
4. From a Pebble Thrown
5. Pebbles Instrumental
6. Might-Have-Beens
7. Upper Sixth Loan Shark
8. Banker Bets, Banker Wins
9. Swing It Far
10. Adrift and Dumbfounded
11. Old School Song
12. Wootton Bassett Town
13. Power and Spirit
14. Give Till It Hurts
15. Cosy Corner
16. Shunt and Shuffle
17. A Change of Horses
18. Confessional
19. Kismet in Suburbia
20. What-ifs, Maybes and Might-Have-Beens
—encore—
21. Locomotive Breath