PERFORMANCE
Living in the past
MUKUND PADMANABHAN
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Swaggering, smug and self-satisfied, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson showed Bangalore that he is still a classy stage act.
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PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K.
KICKING OFF: Ian Anderson wasn't "too old to rock and roll".
CHOOSING between Bryan Adams and Ian Anderson is the easy part. After all, a chart-busting pop singer with a gravelly voice is no match for the legendary pied piper of rock music.
Even so, the thought of attending the Jethro Tull concert at Bangalore raises three anxieties. First, the usual band members — led by the outrageously talented lead guitarist Martin Barre — will not be there. Second, the concert will be staged in an unfamiliar campus and not in Palace Orchards — Bangalore natural venue for rock concerts — the spacious and comforting open air grounds in which Adams is scheduled to perform two days later. Finally, there is a worrying question mark about Ian Anderson himself. Some of his recent work has met (and deservedly) with lukewarm reviews. The man who introduced the flute to rock music has been in the business for four decades. Could the 59-year-old, to borrow a line from one of his songs, be "too old to rock and roll and too young to die"? Is he worth making the trip all the way to Bangalore.
He is.
But it takes almost two hours before this becomes apparent. Rock concerts are expected to get under way fashionably late, but it is somewhat ridiculous that the warm up act for Jethro Tull — Thermal And A Quarter — should take the stage three-quarters of an hour after the scheduled start. The Bangalore-based band is an enthusiastic act, kicking off with Queen's "Radio Ga Ga" and then plunging into its own compositions of variable quality. There are flashes of talent here and there, particularly in Jupiter Café at the very end. But to a hungry audience, the support act is like being served a tepid chicken frankie (the only edible thing available at the IIM grounds) before a gourmet meal.
Odd choice?
It is 8.45 p.m. by the time Jethro Tull kicks off. Ian Anderson appears on stage to a roar of applause and the concert is launched without much ado with "My Sunday Feeling". It is an odd choice, as most of the audience seems unfamiliar with the hangover song ("Won't somebody tell me where I laid my head last night?") from the debut album "This Was" — a pretty average and somewhat unsatisfactory blues-rock offering. The story goes that Anderson insisted on calling it "This Was" in order to signal the transitory nature of the band's musical style, which he planned on taking in other directions (which he did).
Range of flute play
"Life's A Long Song" is next and Anderson goes into acoustic mode for this soft rocker, starting with the guitar and ending the song with an intricate and loosely structured coda on the flute. By now the adrenalin has started to flow. There is a folksy and spirited rendition of "Eurology", which may be a lightweight instrumental but which allows Anderson to show off the full range of his flute play — deftly balancing his guile with his sense of mischief and playfulness. The opening bars of "Living In The Past" — Tull's deceptively simple melody wrapped tightly and warmly around the flute — are greeted with a cheer that seems entirely appropriate; after all, isn't this exactly what the thousands of people gathered here are doing?
In its 38-year-old life, Tull has been many things — an R & B band, a progressive rock oufit and a group that looked at increasing musical influences — folk, celtic, classical — to reinvent itself. "You know I like to bugger around with classical music," jokes Anderson before working up a mischievous and playful medley of Mozart; as one might have expected, the familiar and cheesy version of J.S. Bach's Bouree, from the album "Stand Up", is also part of the programme.
Since not even Anderson can play the guitar and the flute at the same time, the softer folksier tunes inevitably take on a more muscular bluesy character. There is also the matter of Anderson's vocals. One couldn't help feeling that his voice has not weathered well — the quirky nasal tone is missing and there are moments, particularly when he draws away from the mike, when it simply fades away.
A classy stage act he is, though engaging the audience with his puckish humour and cavorting and posturing on the stage in his waistcoat and bandana — swaggering, smug, self-satisfied; by turns, imp, satyr, jester. The substitute band members provide wonderful support (the lead guitarist is particularly accomplished) and by the time Anderson delves into "Thick As A Brick" — the title song from his delightfully self-indulgent and rambling album — he has truly hit his stride.
There are moments of sheer epiphany during the elaborate and highly wrought version of "Budapest", reminders that one is listening to one of rock music's greatest bands. As one expects, Anderson signs off with the song from the eponymous album that cemented the band's place in history: "Aqualung". The opening blast of the classic on paedophilia ("Sitting on a park bench/Eyeing little girls with bad intent") is haunting and disturbingly familiar and Anderson brings the song to a rousing climax.
As always, there are demands for an encore and Anderson has accounted for that. He has not yet played his other great hit and as expected we are swiftly transported along into the shuffling madness of the Locomotive Breath.
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