Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Piazzale del Castello / Udine / Italy
Concert date: 02.07.2009
Attendance: 5000
Ticket price: €30.00
For part of the Rockline crew, catching the English progressive folk rock legends Jethro Tull live has become a yearly tradition, and it’s racked up a nice pile of wonderful memories. This time we met up with Ian Anderson, the indestructible flute-wielding warrior and fervent defender of all things rural, his loyal guitar shield-bearer Martin “Lancelot” Barre and the rest of the troubadour gang, who’ve been working in the current lineup since 2007. It all went down as part of Folkest 2009, the annual international folk festival. Its main purpose is to promote international folk (rock) music. Alongside lesser-known or still unestablished bands, the odd legend turns up there too, as happened this year with Jethro Tull. The picturesque setting of the castle walls in the middle of Udine couldn’t have been chosen more carefully, as it offers a practically perfect ambience for a band of their troubadour stamp.
Before Jethro Tull, a special musical guest took the stage, not exactly a regular on the Italian concert scene. The warm-up was handled by none other than the excellent Scottish singer Ray Wilson, who made his biggest name as the former Genesis vocalist. Back then, in the thankless role of Phil Collins’ replacement, he sang on their last studio album “Calling All Stations” (1997). Even before that he’d made a splash as the singer of Stiltskin, with whom he recorded the international hit “Inside”. Ray ended up as Jethro Tull’s special guest quite by chance, when, in the middle of his own solo tour, he accepted an invitation from his fellow Scot Ian Anderson to open Tull’s shows in Udine and Bergamo.
Unlike most of Ray’s solo dates, where he plays with his own band Stiltskin or with an acoustic backing group, this night he went fully solo, armed with just an acoustic guitar and the power of his vocal cords. Those who’d been expecting an electrified set with a backing band were visibly disappointed the moment Ray walked out alone with an acoustic guitar in hand, but that mood quickly turned into joyful approval as the set went on, despite how extremely short it was (just eighteen minutes).
With deeply felt singing and tight chord strumming, Ray kicked off with “Change”, the most popular song from the album of the same name and probably from his whole solo repertoire, which was picked in 2003 as the main anthem of the global conservation festival. He presented his latest album, the excellent “Propaganda Man”(2009), through the love ballad “Razorlite”. The crowd visibly stirred for the first time at the opening chords, and especially at the chorus of the Stiltskin hit “Inside”, which Ray belted out with almost the same fire as fifteen years ago.
Then came the moment all the prog fans in the crowd had undoubtedly been waiting for most impatiently: the acoustic version of the Genesis classic and single “Not About Us” from “Calling All Stations”, Ray’s only record with the prog rock legends. Those of us who missed the 1998 Genesis tour were finally treated to hearing a song from that forever-overlooked album live, even if only in an acoustic outfit. Mr. Wilson, who at forty is still in excellent vocal shape, closed his set with “The Actor” from his second solo album “The Next Best Thing” (2004). Despite a set far too short to give an authentic picture of his songs, which would surely have come alive in a totally different light with a backing band, Ray managed to present all the most important chapters of his musical career in the time he had, and left the stage to thunderous applause.
Jethro Tull made it clear the moment they walked on that they wouldn’t be messing around with any dodgy picks from their later years or from solo careers for even a second. Instead they went back almost entirely to the days when they were still a young, ambitious band, with the usual display of instrumental perfection and a first-rate troubadour atmosphere. They opened in a rush with the hard-rocking romp “Nothing Is Easy”. The crowd’s attention was, of course, glued from the first moment to the piercing figure of the hopping little man in the pirate bandana, who once again thrilled everyone with his gastronomic flute improvisations.
This time Ian and his rustic buddies tailored their set to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of their second album “Stand Up” (1969), which means they played that album almost in its entirety. Given that “Stand Up” is written in Ian’s heart as one of his favorite albums, it was only natural to expect them to give each performance their all and try to catch the original spirit from the days when they were still molting from an obscure blues rock band into prog folk rock titans. The previous year, for example, they celebrated the band’s fortieth anniversary and focused accordingly on songs from the blues rock debut “This Was” (1968), which got its fair share of airtime this night too.
Reviving the blues roots was another “Stand Up” classic, the immortal “A New Day Yesterday”, one of those songs that has a very special revitalizing effect on the band. After a dramatic visit to the beggar’s farm with an excellent version of the ancient classic “Beggar’s Farm”, came the legendary “This Was” instrumental “Serenade To A Cuckoo” (original by R. Kirk), the one on which Ian took his first steps as a flutist more than forty years ago. Here he allowed himself the first longer improvisation, which ended with the trademark snorting of a walrus with a cold. Of course, Ian couldn’t go without cracking all sorts of jokes this night either, this time more at his own expense than at his bandmates’, which is usually the norm.
The first sarcastic salvo was fired at the number of bass players who’d passed through the band over the years before the current bassist David Goodier arrived. That reminded him of his favorite former bassist and great friend Jeffrey Hammond, to whom Tull had dedicated no fewer than three songs in the past, even before he joined the band. This time we got “Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square”, the second of those three Hammond tribute songs, which you don’t get to hear live all that often. Ian piled on even more self-mockery before the “Stand Up” standards “Back To The Family” and the medley “We Used To Know/For A Thousand Mothers”, which he declared, one after the other, the worst songs of his career, with the excuse that you have to pick some from among more than two hundred songs written.
The first of the indispensable Tull concert standards was the legendary baroque instrumental “Bourée” (which Ian likes to call the porn version of the J.S. Bach classic), closing out the run of “Stand Up” songs. The first highlight of the night was an outstanding performance of the “Aqualung” (1971) classic “Mother Goose”. This is that famous moment of every Tull show when the giant drummer Doane Perry sits down behind the bongos at the front of the stage while Ian hands out recorders to the rest of the band, usually accompanied by remarks about the different lengths of the flutes and how it’s not all about length. Mother Goose came alive in a truly magical mood, conjured up by the strums of Ian’s mandolin, the tuned wind section and Doane’s percussion accompaniment. Ian’s singing too, which was as expected the weakest point of the whole show, deserves praise for its faithful vocal interpretation of the original.
The next highlight and one of the bigger surprises of the night was the rural classic “Heavy Horses” from the prog folk rock masterpiece of the same name. Despite Ian’s considerable vocal struggle and the occasional tambourine maneuvering he used to make up for some of the flute parts, we got an excellent instrumental interpretation of one of the best Tull songs. As is only proper, most of the performances were enriched with various improvisations and short solo bits. With a splendid take on the traditional baroque instrumental “Pastime With Good Company (originally King Henry’s Madrigal)”, the troubadour and his subjects briefly whisked us back to the days of the infamous English king Henry VIII.
Then they sprang another surprise, taking us back to the eighties with the epic “Farm On A Freeway”, from the album “Crest Of A Knave” (1987), which won them the Grammy for best heavy metal album of the year and so produced one of the best comedies in rock history. The last surprise of the night was the ancient “Dharma For One”, where Doane Perry got the chance for a short drum solo. His solo showcase was built up by Barre and Goodier with the improvised bit “Count The Chickens”.
The finale was heralded by an excellent performance of the legendary progressive rock epic “Thick As A Brick” (in a thoroughly shortened version, of course), which Ian, as usual, used before playing it to clear up a few ambiguities about this parody of prog rock concept albums. Here too there was no shortage of witty improvised bits and the obligatory mid-song appearance of the glockenspiel. The main set ended, quite expectedly, with “Aqualung”, which as usual drew the loudest response from the crowd, while the encore with “Locomotive Breath” was simply a mandatory formality that they still gave their all for, and were rewarded with rapturous applause.
I can say without hesitation that we witnessed one of the better shows by these legendary elders of progressive rock compared to our previous encounters and the castle ambience and a fair bit of luck with the weather helped a lot. At almost 62, the charismatic chief is still in excellent stage shape, which he demonstrated all night with his characteristic one-legged hopping, arm flailing, sexual abuse of the flute and sharp stares at the crowd, into which he drilled the full width of his bulging eyeballs. The stage is still his favorite dance floor for troubadour tomfoolery. His voice has fared quite a bit worse over the years, no longer able to reach certain registers, so he often resorts to crafty improvisations that fool hardly anyone. His band of musical buddies, led by the eternally stage-shy Barre, who often gives the impression he’d rather hide somewhere backstage, once again came across as an extremely disciplined unit that still enjoys playing without limits. Despite Ian’s notorious vocal problems, a Jethro Tull concert remains a thing unto itself when it comes to combining outstanding tightness with magical stage atmosphere, which only the greatest masters of their craft can pull off. As for when they’ll finally record a new studio album, I’d rather not theorize anymore.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1. Nothing Is Easy 2. A New Day Yesterday 3. Beggar’s Farm 4. Serenade To A Cuckoo 5. Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square 6. Back To The Family 7. We Used To Know/For A Thousand Mothers 8. Bourée 9. Mother Goose 10. Heavy Horses 11. Pastime With Good Company 12. Farm On A Freeway 13. Dharma For One (incl. drum solo)/Count the Chickens 14. Thick As A Brick 15. Aqualung —encore— 16. Locomotive Breath
Photo gallery
