Jethro Tull

4:45 AM the 3rd of February and I am just about finishing up with the last movie of the night...waiting for time to pass. Had to pick up Aniket, now a total blues-man, from the airport and meet with Amar and then in the evening head out to Unmaad for Jethro. Jethro was not a band that influenced my music, but all that was about to change in parts. I immensely dug "Aqualung", TAAB and "Heavy Horses" ... but apart from these, I never delved. So weeks before this, I thought Id just let the show pass. Thank god I didnt. So after having a brief Antibiotic reunion ... we left for Unmaad, and hit gates at around 6:15 PM and met Mallya after getting tanked some. We walked right up to that barricade that's always put in place, just incase the mob gets excited an all ... And then as always, waited and waited for the show to begin. To add to this, those fhead photographers/reporters from the papers were there firing at will at all of our semi-sozzled faces. And after throwing some cuss around for these pressmen as well as Mr. Demonstealer (what the fuck was he doing there??!!), finally found Thermal on stage and ready to open. Since Ive already written about the Thermal set/gear etc, Im skipping that segment. And then came Jethro Tull!

Ian Andersen looked "Plastic" but this visage was deceptive. He has really aged, but the chops stay intact of course. And the energy!!!! He still maintains all of those antics (facial or otherwise) we saw on film and byte! He is the only Tullman from the original Tull mark. Nobody else was there. No Barre, Giddings or Noyce. But in those places were equally "hapshi" (¥) individuals. I, as always took immediate and huge notice of that kid of a guitar player they call Florian Opahle. The only difference between Mr. Barre and Mr. Opahle (apart from that aura that Mr. Barre creates and carries around) is about 35+ years!! Florian is nineteen. When I was nineteen, playing a squeak was the quest of life! Florian played a Les Paul Studio and the tone people ... Aniket...youll never get that tone anyway else ... please buy Gibson. Small bit I noticed was that when Florian plucks those simple bass-to-treble chords, he uses upstrokes rather than downstrokes, which I found funny. Not that it matters or might matter to him....not sure. Also, he controlled volumes with his pedal rather than knob ... with the passage of time ... I am seeing more and more people doing this...guess they dont make linear pots anymore (?). And then after some of the songs I had never heard before, they came down to Thick as a brick and Aqualung, brilliant guitar solo for Aqualung and (well), great flute for TAAB. Bummer was, no "Hymn 43"!!!! But awesome rendition of "My God" ... especally the intro and the way Florian stepped in ... I cant believe the kind of tone Ian Andersen's electronics achieve!! He plays this guitar (dont know brand/model/spec) that looks more ukulele than guitar ... but man oh man ... that piece sings! About renditions ... all of their songs were renditions in one way or the other ... some in signature some studded with extra/altered solos ... overall less "electric" than the studio counterparts...and ah yes...loaded with antics, mostly coming from Andersen ... I generally like bands that use a bare minimum "rock band" choice of instrument set ... acoustics/electrics, keyboard/piano/organ, drums/perc and bass ... always hated the sax on floyd (what a waste of tape!), but Jethro must be an exception. I dig the flute parts from Tull very much (flute solos are fireflies in Tull songs). After the concert, couple more beers at home, with discussion. Then dinner (friendly neighborhood Imperial) and then the sack at 4:30 in the morning.

¥ : adj, used to describe individuals posessing great talent, synonymous with terms such as "bond", "guru", "king", etc