10:40 PM, Unmaad ground, IIMB Campus
As the thousands of people gathered there for the magical evening with Ian and company started to walk towards the entrance, Louis Armstrong’s ‘Wonderful world’ started playing over the PA System. The crowd which had been clamouring for more of Jethro Tull’s music and were unsatisfied with just around two hours of music cheered up and started singing along… I’m sure they all really believed in the lyrics at that time.As the Queen would’ve said I’ve to begin at the beginning.The ticket claimed that the show will start at “7:00PM Sharp!!!” but started only at 7:45, late and hungry to eat up a lot of the musical time promised. The late start ensured that both Thermal and a quarter and Jethro Tull had to cut short their song lists to end the show on schedule.
Thermal and A Quarter opened with an almost faithful rendition of “Radio Ga Ga”. Bruce Lee Manion Electric Guitars and backing Vocals, Rajeev Rajagopal on Drums, Rzhude on Bass Guitar and backing Vocals, Sunil Chandy on Acoustic Guitars and Keyboards created some good music from their new album ‘Plan B’ and the earlier ‘Jupiter Café’ to warm up the audience. David Pascal had been co-opted into the band to sing and he did a fairly decent job with his vocals and Mick Jagger inspired moves. I could recognise only a few songs from Jupiter Café album like ‘Look at me’ and’Jupiter Café’ but generally the music was pretty good. The last two songs of their set included Prakash Sontakke a brilliant Hindustani classical slide guitarist. An electrifying rendition of the surrealistic song ‘Jupiter Café’ set the stage for the even more surrealistic magic of Ian Anderson and his band of merry men.
Ian Anderson with flute, harmonica, acoustic guitar and vocals, Florian Opahle on electric Guitars [ his long curly blonde hair and his guitar picking style reminded me of Warren Hayes of Allman Bros. and Govt. Mule. This guy is really good with his guitars though he doesn’t have the flamboyance of Warren. He’ll learn, he’s very young ], David Goodier on bass, John O’ Hara on keyboards and accordion and James Duncan on drums stayed true to the sound of Tull even without Martin Barre,Doane Perry, Barry Barlow or Andy Giddings.
Starting with ‘My Sunday feeling’, Anderson peppered the show with lots of spicy comments, sometimes-subtle-and-sometimes-over-the-top humor about the songs and pranced on stage, evenacting as if his trouser had split after an especially long solo on the flute and he kept kicking air. ‘Eurology’ from the album ‘Rupi’s dance’ was introduced as a signature of the times and not a study of the “wee wee hole” and “Mother goose” as a surrealistic piece written inspired by the goings on in Hamsptead heath during the late 60’s.’Pavane’ from the ‘Christmas’ album wascredited to G. Fauré with Anderson saying that ‘Fauré is dead and that’s good - for one he’d notbe subjected to seeing his material tampered with and I dont have to pay royalties’. An absolutely brilliant acoustic ‘Jack-in-the-green’ from ‘Songs from the wood’ was introduced as Anderson’s favourite from that album because it was his shortest and the audience wont be subjected to too much of inconvenience’. Mozart got a tribute with two of his compositionsgetting the Tull treatment, called ‘Moz-art’ they drew huge applause from the appreciative audience.There were plenty of improvisations and extended guitar and flute solos. The improvisations on ‘Budapest’ and ‘Bouree’ was superb. ‘My god’ were really special. I was Standing in the second row, right in front and between the speaker racks, a perfect place acoustically. What made the performance interesting was the way Ian Anderson was contorting his face while singing. “Cross Eyed Mary” got the full treatment of some really superb guitar and flute improvisations. ‘Aqualung’ closed the show, but with audience not willing to leave the concert arena, The artistes came back to perform a really awesome ‘Locomotive Breath’. Ian Anderson played safe by selecting only the popular Tull songs and did not play any of his solo stuff except that one ‘Eurology’ song. It was a little disappointing as his ‘Secret language of birds’ and ‘Divinities :12 dances with gods’ are exceptional albums. He could have atleast played ‘In the times of India’.Cribbing about not getting to listen to some of my fav Jethro Tull / Ian Anderson music live apart, this was a memorable show.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.Looking forward to the other long time favourite band ‘Uriah Heep’ performing live on 8th Feb. at Palace Grounds.
As the thousands of people gathered there for the magical evening with Ian and company started to walk towards the entrance, Louis Armstrong’s ‘Wonderful world’ started playing over the PA System. The crowd which had been clamouring for more of Jethro Tull’s music and were unsatisfied with just around two hours of music cheered up and started singing along… I’m sure they all really believed in the lyrics at that time.As the Queen would’ve said I’ve to begin at the beginning.The ticket claimed that the show will start at “7:00PM Sharp!!!” but started only at 7:45, late and hungry to eat up a lot of the musical time promised. The late start ensured that both Thermal and a quarter and Jethro Tull had to cut short their song lists to end the show on schedule.
Thermal and A Quarter opened with an almost faithful rendition of “Radio Ga Ga”. Bruce Lee Manion Electric Guitars and backing Vocals, Rajeev Rajagopal on Drums, Rzhude on Bass Guitar and backing Vocals, Sunil Chandy on Acoustic Guitars and Keyboards created some good music from their new album ‘Plan B’ and the earlier ‘Jupiter Café’ to warm up the audience. David Pascal had been co-opted into the band to sing and he did a fairly decent job with his vocals and Mick Jagger inspired moves. I could recognise only a few songs from Jupiter Café album like ‘Look at me’ and’Jupiter Café’ but generally the music was pretty good. The last two songs of their set included Prakash Sontakke a brilliant Hindustani classical slide guitarist. An electrifying rendition of the surrealistic song ‘Jupiter Café’ set the stage for the even more surrealistic magic of Ian Anderson and his band of merry men.
Ian Anderson with flute, harmonica, acoustic guitar and vocals, Florian Opahle on electric Guitars [ his long curly blonde hair and his guitar picking style reminded me of Warren Hayes of Allman Bros. and Govt. Mule. This guy is really good with his guitars though he doesn’t have the flamboyance of Warren. He’ll learn, he’s very young ], David Goodier on bass, John O’ Hara on keyboards and accordion and James Duncan on drums stayed true to the sound of Tull even without Martin Barre,Doane Perry, Barry Barlow or Andy Giddings.
Starting with ‘My Sunday feeling’, Anderson peppered the show with lots of spicy comments, sometimes-subtle-and-sometimes-over-the-top humor about the songs and pranced on stage, evenacting as if his trouser had split after an especially long solo on the flute and he kept kicking air. ‘Eurology’ from the album ‘Rupi’s dance’ was introduced as a signature of the times and not a study of the “wee wee hole” and “Mother goose” as a surrealistic piece written inspired by the goings on in Hamsptead heath during the late 60’s.’Pavane’ from the ‘Christmas’ album wascredited to G. Fauré with Anderson saying that ‘Fauré is dead and that’s good - for one he’d notbe subjected to seeing his material tampered with and I dont have to pay royalties’. An absolutely brilliant acoustic ‘Jack-in-the-green’ from ‘Songs from the wood’ was introduced as Anderson’s favourite from that album because it was his shortest and the audience wont be subjected to too much of inconvenience’. Mozart got a tribute with two of his compositionsgetting the Tull treatment, called ‘Moz-art’ they drew huge applause from the appreciative audience.There were plenty of improvisations and extended guitar and flute solos. The improvisations on ‘Budapest’ and ‘Bouree’ was superb. ‘My god’ were really special. I was Standing in the second row, right in front and between the speaker racks, a perfect place acoustically. What made the performance interesting was the way Ian Anderson was contorting his face while singing. “Cross Eyed Mary” got the full treatment of some really superb guitar and flute improvisations. ‘Aqualung’ closed the show, but with audience not willing to leave the concert arena, The artistes came back to perform a really awesome ‘Locomotive Breath’. Ian Anderson played safe by selecting only the popular Tull songs and did not play any of his solo stuff except that one ‘Eurology’ song. It was a little disappointing as his ‘Secret language of birds’ and ‘Divinities :12 dances with gods’ are exceptional albums. He could have atleast played ‘In the times of India’.Cribbing about not getting to listen to some of my fav Jethro Tull / Ian Anderson music live apart, this was a memorable show.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.Looking forward to the other long time favourite band ‘Uriah Heep’ performing live on 8th Feb. at Palace Grounds.
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