Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Jethro Tull
Label: EMI Records
Release: 2009
Length: 78:36
Rating: 5/5
Ian Anderson and his entourage of progressive folk rock apostles haven’t fired up the tractor for a new studio release in years, but they’ve been busily treating their loyal followers lately with live albums from different periods of their rich career. The colorful collection of official live releases has now gained another member, “Live At Madison Square Garden”, which captures the legendary band’s lineup from 31 years ago. On that long-ago day, October 14, 1978, when Jethro Tull took the stage in the middle of New York’s famous Madison Square Garden, they were in the thick of the hugely successful “Heavy Horses” tour. Among other things, that show made them the first British rock band to play in America and have the concert broadcast live to a British television station.
The debates over which Tull incarnation was the best will probably never die down, but most fans agree that the lineup that was active in the second half of the seventies and recorded prog folk rock classics like “Songs From The Wood” (1977) and “Heavy Horses” (1978) had an extraordinary harmony, which showed best on their live shows. Comparisons with the legendary live album “Bursting Out” (1978), which rightfully belongs among the best live albums of all time, come up all by themselves here, whether it’s the quality of the recording, the atmosphere, or the simple fact that both live documents were recorded with the same lineup on the same tour.
The setlist is very similar to the one on “Bursting Out”, just in a somewhat different order, and with a performance of one of their finest pieces, the farmyard anthem “Heavy Horses”, which could even be crowned the high point of the whole recording, since apart from the missing violin solo it falls short of the studio version in nothing. Practically all the performances of Tull classics are packed with witty improvisations, above all the baroque arrangements from conductor and keyboardist David (now Dee) Palmer, Barre’s one-of-a-kind guitar solos and of course Ian’s flute shenanigans, which once again confirms the full greatness of one of the tightest and most explosive live bands of all time.
The vivid baroque arrangements can be admired right from the opener, the hard-rocking classic “Sweet Dream”, where the symphonic harmonies of both keyboardists, Palmer and John Evans, really come into their own. The Tull live wagon team was generously propped up rhythmically by the dynamic drum barrages of Barriemore Barlow, for many fans the best drummer in the band’s history, while the melodic bass lines were shrewdly taken care of by John Glascock, who bid farewell to life, young as he was, less than a year after the end of the “Heavy Horses” tour. All the performances are played with astonishing fire and a pervasive instrumental chemistry. Above all, though, it’s Ian’s excellent vocal form that stirs up nostalgia, since it has long since become a thing of the distant past and is very likely the main reason for his years of putting off recording a new studio album.
Just how fit Ian’s farmhand standard-bearers were that evening is also shown by the brilliant version of the band’s most popular classic, “Locomotive Breath”, which runs over 15 minutes and is seasoned with a heaping helping of assorted solo improvisations. Such long, extra-improvised versions of their long-standing classics were more or less a rarity for them, since at their live shows they steered clear of Deep Purple-style marathon jam excesses. Anyone who owns the 1998 CD reissue of “Thick As A Brick” will instantly recognize the “Live At Madison Square Garden” version of this immortal prog classic, since it appears there as a bonus track. Needless to say, this is one of the best versions of the legendary epic, which is also a concept album about the dumbest rustic images of Britain’s highly refined society, even though, as usual for live purposes, it’s been thoroughly trimmed down from its normal length. The woodland-farmyard live party peaks with a vivid performance of the prog folk rock classic “Songs From The Wood”, Ian’s hymn to unspoiled forests and their watchful inhabitants. Here, too, the bearded forest friends once again show off their unusual tightness and boundless knack for witty instrumental interludes.
Tradition dictates that the live setlist can’t be without the hard-rocking favorite “Aqualung”, another from the short list of Tull evergreens, which Ian sings on this version with a very special fire, once again easily bringing to life before the listener’s eyes the famous character from the muddy bottom of the British social ladder, one that not even Charles Dickens could have dreamed up. The excellent medley “My God/Cross Eyed Mary” belongs here as a matter of course too, the two songs that could also be called the obligatory companions of the “Aqualung” quasi-concept, a brilliant cross-section of clerical-pedophile hypocrisy that has been choking not just the Anglo-Saxon social order for ages upon ages but lately, more and more, our own fatherland too, the one we’re so proud of and which tries so hard to please the Western socio-economic architects in everything. Among the performances you rarely come across at Tull shows these days are the folk rock standard “One Brown Mouse”, Ian’s ode to the furry friends he shares his crop stores with, the forgotten masterpiece “No Lullaby”, whose mood and lyrics have an extra special effect on Halloween night (Ian cunningly wove in the central motif of the Christmas classic “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”), and the unforgettable satire “Too Old To Rock’n’Roll Too Young To Die”, the fruit of Ian’s showdown with certain music critics who were already packing him off to retirement in the mid-seventies, in his thirties.
Listening to “Live At Madison Square Garden”, everyone living on the edge of the woods or in freshly mown fields will prick up their ears with extra excitement, since the whole recording easily ranks among the best Tull live documents. In terms of the quality of the performances, the overall atmosphere and the production, it comes in right behind the immortal live classic “Bursting Out”, which is hardly a surprise after all, since it captures a show by probably the best incarnation of the prog folk legends. A long-time Tull fan could hardly wish for anything better than a live document from the time when their favorite band was at the peak of its live form. The old troubadour fox does keep slyly wriggling out of things with these live documents from his golden days, as well as with his constant touring, when it comes to vehemently putting off a return to the recording studio, but with such diligent upkeep of his own musical legacy, he’s forgiven a lot.
Lineup
Ian Anderson – vocals, flute, acoustic guitar
Martin Barre – electric guitar, mandolin, marimba
John Glascock – bass guitar, guitar, backing vocals
Barriemore Barlow – drums, glockenspiel
John Evans – piano, organ, accordion, synthesizer
David Palmer – organ, synthesizer
Production
Ian Anderson
Track List
1. Sweet Dream
2. One Brown Mouse
3. Heavy Horses
4. Opening
5. Thick As A Brick
6. No Lullaby [including Flute Solo of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’]
7. Songs From The Wood
8. Band Intro
9. Quatrain
10. Aqualung
11. Locomotive Breath [including Dambusters March]
12. Too Old To Rock ‘N’ Roll
13. My God / Cross Eyed Mary
