featuring Ian Anderson with Martin Barre, John Evan, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond and Barriemore Barlow warm-up by The Eagles at Municipal Auditorium
Karen Brown, Kansas City Star, 6/16/72
The right words for a review are sometimes awfully hard to find. This is one of those times--a Jethro Tull concert is almost indescribable. Not only are they one of the finest rock groups around, but their performance last night came close to being experimental theatre.
The warm-up by the new group, The Eagles, known for their current hit, “Take It Easy,” was a good start for the evening. Their music is solid rock, with a twanging country overtone. In slower numbers the sound is soft and pleasing, as in “Train Leaves This Morning.” The Eagles’ spot on Jethro Tull’s tour is a good gig for a new group, the only problem being that Jethro Tull’s part of the concert is so exciting, it’s hard to remember the warm-up later.
When Jethro Tull came on stage, the audience became fully alive. After some introductory patter, Ian Anderson said that the group’s first number would be a bit long and the audience shouldn’t get restless. With that the group led into their new album, Thick As A Brick. There wasn’t a restless moment the rest of the evening.
The album itself is structured around a poem supposedly by an eight-year-old child, and a daily newspaper. The lyrics combine the two, each commenting on the other. Anderson’s lyrics are always more than just a frame for the music; here they are a chronicle of the bizarre and constant series of madnesses we call “life.”
The group emphasized this by their insane stage antics while performing the music. Anderson leaped wildly around the stage, twirling his flute and leering at the audience. A telephone rang, an ape took pictures of the audience, news and weather reports were given, there was a lewd bit in a cabana, there were bird calls and assorted animal sounds. The audience responded enthusiastically, if incredulously, to all of it.
It would have been easy to concentrate on the impromptu theatre in the performance. But the music that ran almost continuously was the outstanding feature.
Jethro Tull is, musically, one of the best groups around. Each member of the group is talented, and they are led by Ian Anderson, who is incomparable. His abilities as composer, lyricist and musician dominate the group. Each time he raised his flute to his lips, the audience began to applaud, knowing what fine music was forthcoming.
As well as a long, beautiful flute solo by Anderson, Thick As A Brick features hard rock, soft lyric interludes with Anderson on the guitar, and an almost classical organ solo by John Evan. After the full version of Thick As A Brick, which is more than most groups will do at a concert, Jethro Tull did cuts from Aqualung. The audience gave the group a long standing ovation. They returned to do “Wind-Up,” another cut from Aqualung, for an encore.
If I had the time, I’d follow Jethro Tull to the next stop on their tour to catch the show again. It was a remarkable performance--the best concert I’ve ever seen. Fantastic!
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