Michi's moat

a.k.a. They're not to old too rock and roll, and definitely too young to die.

Seated on a large meadow just by the Bayrische Rundfunk in Nürnberg, the smallish stage was rather much like a stage as the audience slowly filed in.

The audience. Where the first relevant observation appears. In the audience, people were present in exactly two age sectors: Those who were there when Jethro Tull first began - the original fanbase. And their children. (Possibly a few cases of their grandchildren too, but I didn't notice any. =)

The last hour before the concert started was dedicated to long queues to buy pizza, occasional soundcheck movements and other minute stage-preparations. And the constant playing of Muddy Waters songs. Nice!

Then the band makes their entrance and starts playing. Ian Anderson with quite the penchant for crowdpleasing bouncing around on stage, using several really neat tricks to perform (including beginning to play his flute long before he actually appears on stage, in a sort of entrance fanfare for the band) and generally being witty, generous and a piece of energy seldom seen. In addition to him, Andrew Giddins handling the keyboard, recorder, accordeon with lots of fun, lots of baldness and waving about of his feet during the solos. Martin Barre on the guitar (and recorder) and mandolin, as well as Doane Perry on the battery both gave me the impression of the Pratchettian Silver Horde - they didn't move about very much, they were instead exactly where they needed to be when they needed to be there in a sort of geriatric metal rock. This was even more clearly displayed when Martin Barre did a number from his solo career - and the characteristic Jethro Tull sound gave way to screaming, howling electric guitars and backing up to make it all the more metal. With a guitarist who solos with a geriatric calm.

In starch contrast to these four, Jonathan Noyce does the bass guitar. He belonged to the younger of the two generations present at the event, and also was the only one on stage dressing up in any way... The original 'Tulls were dressed in fun manners all around, whereas Noyce appeared on stage in a black suit, black shirt and yellow gigantic tie.

A few of the absolut highlights involve the following quotes from Ian Anderson.

After the first two songs, both from an album he explained to have been from 1967:
"But enough of that old stuff. Let's take something from our new productions. Let's see. The next song is from ... erm ... 1976."

When encountered with the crowd cheering:
"No! No! Nonono! Nooo! No! No!" *cheering subsides* "Yes! YEEES! YES!" *cheering returns* "It's a bit like sex, y'know."

When talking about a songwriter he's cooperated with:
"I had this relation with a 12-year old boy once. No, it's nothing like that. He used to write songs for me. He's .. what? .. 43 now."

All in all, the concert did a lot to convince me that I should be listening to more of their production - I have almost only listened to the greatest hits-albums; thus I only recognized three songs in the entire show: Bouree, Aqualung and one more, which I right now don't remember which it is... (blech) I think I'd appreciate the rest of their production better in a studio-recorded environment, where I'm actually able to hear the texts instead of getting them mangled by Ian Andersons habit to bob his head around the microphone according to the pitch of his song.

All in all a good concert which makes me happy I went there.