Jethro Tull, in one incarnation or another, has been putting out records and touring for over 30 years.
Of course, one has to realize that Jethro Tull is essentially an Ian Anderson project with longtime associate and guitarist Martin Barre cast in the role of musical foil.
Anderson is the primary songwriter, the lead signer and flutist, the focus of the band’s live gigs, and the sole original member of Jethro Tull. Barre comes close, joining the group with their second album, Stand Up, and his guitar tone is an integral part of the sound fans associate with the band. The other musicians, talented as they may be, have generally been plug-ins, handling the rhythm section but not as essential to the trademark sound of the band.
Fans of the band span a wide demographic that runs from the 50-somethings down to high schoolers enamored of “classic rock” radio formats. At Darien Lake, you had kids with their parents, bikers dressed up in leathers, old hippies, young hipsters-in-training, and stockbrokers reliving their youth, all primed and ready for the band to go onstage. By the time Jethro Tull hits its marks, the large audience rose en masse and screamed its approval prior to any note being sounded.
The songs covered during the show ranged from “Serenade to a Cuckoo,” the Roland Kirk tune that showed up on Tull’s first album, This Was, to a pair of selections from their latest disc, J-Tull.com, the title tune and “Spiral.” Still, while there were isolated songs copped from albums like Catfish Rising and Crest Of A Knave, the bulk of the material was drawn, not unexpectedly, from the two most popular albums in their canon--Stand Up (with five selections) and Aqualung (with two cuts).
When the chords for “Fat Man” or “For a Thousand Mothers” rang through the night, you could see members of the crowd singing along with Anderson and catch an occasional soul flailing an air guitar riff in approximation of Barre’s powerful picking.
Anderson was all over the stage, but lacked his manic stage presence. The audience and performers seemed to be enjoying each other, but the crowd went ballistic when Tull broke out with “Locomotive Breath.” It was the last song in the regular set and the crowd stood up from the tune’s opening keyboard riffs until the last crashing chord. Then the lighters came out in a concert ritual dating back to the mid-1970s.
When the band came out for the obligatory “Aqualung,” people were dancing in the aisles and running down front to get as close as possible to the stage.
Yeah, the concert was a bit of a flashback, but that pair of new cuts from the band’s latest album sounded pretty good too, and got a fairly decent response from the fans. Tull may be one of the older rock bands on the touring circuit, but it’s capable of maintaining its fan base and even building on it.
Singer/guitarist Victoria Pratt Keating opened the show with a short set of songs leaning heavily on Joni Mitchell’s open chords and Rickie Lee Jones’ dream notebooks. Not that bad a combination, if truth be told, but certainly an incongruous lead-in for a Jethro Tull concert. Still, the audience (or at least those who paid attention) seemed favorably impressed.
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