LIVE - BURSTING OUT

The strange thing with those gigantic bands is that some live performances from earlier (to ancient) times are released way beyond their happening. Example : the Tull at the Isle Of Wight (played in 70 and released as official album in 2004 !). What I mean is that the Tull released very few live albums during its awesome carreer (compared to Purple or Yes for instance) and when they do, some times, it took a hell of time to release them.

A live release has never been a priority for the Tull. In 1978 though,, they decided to record one and therefore each single show from their tour in Europe was taped. Then, a bit of selection of the best tracks here and there and on we go !

This official live Tull album was recorded during the supporting live tour for "Heavy Horses". The public announcement from Claude Nobs (you know "Funky Claude" from "Smoke on the Water") shows that at least the first track is from Bern (Switzerland) since it is in Italian and French (it is aslo their only date of touring in Switzerland).

It starts quite hard rocking with "No Lullaby" from Heavy Horses, followed by "Sweet Dream" from ... Stand Up (69). They will also play a shorter version of "A New Day Yesterday" from this album. Another (weak) track from Heavy Horses "One Brown Mouse". One could have anticipated for other songs from "Heavy Horses" since it was a very good album.

Three songs from "Songs From The Wood" : ("Jack-In-The-Green", "Songs from the Wood" and "Hunting Girl"). The album "Aqualung" which is one of their masterpieces is also well represented with three tracks ("Aqualung", "Cross-Eyed Mary" and "Locomotive Breath"- you have to listen to this live intro : GORGEOUS. There is also a flute jamming solo featuring very nice moments.

The closing number of this first CD is a shortened (but good) version of "Thick". If like some reviewer, you would like to hear a longer version, there are options. Either you listen to the studio album (almost 44 minutes) or you can get some boots version (I have one of over 68 minutes recorded in Tokyo). Actually, a twelve minutes medley is not a so bad a compromise.

The remastered CD version (featuring two CD's), allows the rendition of three deleted tracks "Quatrain", "Sweet Dream" and "Conundrum" : an instrumental piece featuring a ...drum solo (hence the title). Forget about "Quatrain" though.

It is to really difficult to figure out but, "Cross-Eyed Mary" seems to be the last song of those concerts. So, from then on, I guess all tracks are encore. What is extraordinary (and I can confirm this for having seen them live, but not for this tour), is the fantastic sense of humour of Ian. He is such a great entertainer ! (although Martin must be pretty bored with his jokes about him; and this for more than thirty-five years) !

Track selection is good, sound capture is excellent, the band at its best to generate quite good live versions of their songs (several being Tull classics). What annoys me though, is that several tracks (too many to my taste) are quite shortened like : "Minstrel", "No Lullaby"or "Too Old".

Tull has produced very few live albums. Amongst all of them, "Bursting Out" is probably the best one. Four stars.