Not since the earliest days, the days of the Aqualung and Stand Up LPs, has Jethro Tull sounded quite so good.
Following the heels of concert tours crowded with more gimmickry than musical showmanship, Tull’s performance Sunday night at Municipal Auditorium before a near-capacity crowd was a refreshing return to the simple musicianship that characterized their earlier efforts.
In many ways, the performance was similar in form to the group’s show last summer at Arrowhead Stadium. There is still the heavy reliance on tunes from the Aqualung period, a work of musical and lyrical power that lead flutist, Ian Anderson, has yet to duplicate. Yet having evolved through massive personnel changes, Tull showed a new strength and assertiveness which had been lacking in their more recent performances.
This new strength is due to a combination of factors. With slightly more than a year of performances with their current personnel, Tull seemed once more a cohesive unit on stage.
Ian Anderson, who has whipped the group through these last years, is more relaxed in his command of the music--even willing to relinquish the stage for brief moments to his sidemen.
Behind him stands a young bassist, John Glascock, whose performance Sunday proved him a more than able replacement for Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond. Drummer Barriemore Barlow, while not an eccentric or flashy rhythm man, ranks in this reviewer’s opinion with the likes of Starship’s Tony Barbossa. Martin Barre, who has remained with Tull the longest of the current crop, is far more relaxed and fluid on lead guitar than in former years.
My only criticism falls on keyboardist John Evan, whose stage antics as a buffoon succeeded more in distracting from the music than in adding any sort of comic relief.
Despite the new aggressiveness of the other members, Ian Anderson still holds commanding reign of his band--without much of the flamboyant costuming that added little to the Tull image in the past. Anderson is as strong and arresting as ever as he orchestrates each note from the group.
Bug-eyed and prancing to either side of the two stage aprons that projected from the auditorium stage, Anderson, attired in red vest and derby, looked much more like an English country squire than the demonic soul who formerly led Tull.
The more than two-hour set was a compendium of the Tull career, although somewhat favoring the earlier period. Its most recent LP, Songs From The Wood, seemed to approximate more closely the lyrical solidarity and musical complexity of earlier Tull works.
...With renditions of “Cross-Eyed Mary,” “Aqualung” and “Wind-Up,” Anderson brought the crowd to its feet for the first time of the evening. Although a more rounded set than I had expected, it is still the Aqualung tunes that combine Anderson’s exotic imagery and musical power most convincingly.
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