http://blog.myspace.com/tonylortiz - May 30th entry

On Fri, 30 May 2008 18:41:24 -0700 (PDT), progea wrote:

"They started with My Sunday Feeling, the opening track from the group's
first album, This Was, which has just been reissued in a special
"collectors' edition". The performance was perfect – eerily so – with
Anderson's wiry vocal boosted so high in the mix that it sounded more
like a gerbil under an auto tyre than the a human.

But there was something incongruous about hearing a band who once beat
Metallica to win the Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal performance
sounding about as loud and rugged as a cruise ship act. And other
numbers from the rock end of their catalogue, such as New Day Yesterday,
sounded even more deracinated. In short, Tull sux antelope nuts.

Greg Lake of Emerson Lake & Palmer fame performed his song Lucky Man as
a guest turn, and one of the departed drummers, Barriemore Barlow,
stepped in as the group waded deep into the more convoluted,
progressive-rock epics Heavy Horses and Thick as a Brick for which they
are still best reviled.

On Sat, 31 May 2008 15:55:04 -0400, w gmail.com> wrote:

As it actually appears:

There seemed to be at least two groups involved in this concert, which ended the UK leg of Jethro Tull's 40th
anniversary tour. One was a gang of lithe, aggressively hirsute, larger-than-life characters who appeared on a big
screen at the back, next to ancient newspaper headlines such as "Would you take this man home to meet mum?" The other
was a far more sober aggregation of musicians, most now as old as your mum, ranged across the stage.

This lot included the fifth drummer, seventh bass player and eighth keyboard player to have entered the ranks over the
40 years. Common to both groups was the flautist and singer Ian Anderson, the only member of Jethro Tull to have
remained in situ throughout, although Martin Barre, who Anderson introduced as "the new guitarist", has filled the post
since 1969.

They started with My Sunday Feeling, the opening track from the group's first album, This Was, which has just been
reissued in a special "collectors' edition". The performance was perfect – eerily so – with Anderson's wiry vocal
boosted so high in the mix that it sounded more like a studio recording than the original did.
But there was something incongruous about hearing a band who once beat Metallica to win the Grammy for Best Hard
Rock/Metal performance sounding about as loud and rugged as a cruise ship act. And other numbers from the rock end of
their catalogue, such as New Day Yesterday, sounded even more deracinated.

On Sat, 31 May 2008 17:32:52 -0400, Tracy_Barber@frontiernet.net wrote:

The Coreopsis fails to bloom.

"Steven Sullivan" a grand celebration by and of a band which has seen better days. Living in
the past indeed. >

I saw them in 1988, and they were playing their non-hard songs and the
concert sucked, but it was what they wanted to do. I saw them again around
1992, and they rocked and played mostly harder songs.

I doubt that it is impossible for them to rock hard. They just choose not
to.