LIVING WITH THE PAST

I knew TULL for the first time when I was in Grade 9 (I think) thru my brother, Henky, who brought home the "War Child" cassette - and the leftover of C60 cassette was occupied with Genesis "From Genesis to Revelation". I sounds strange? Well, in fact I knew Genesis before with a Nursery Cryme album, actually. "Bungle in The Jungle" blew me away with its unique flute work and rhythm section. The singing style of Ian sounds unique as well. The more I spin the cassette, my taste grew with the music and I started to explore all albums of TULL and really amazed with "A Passion Play" and "Thick As A Brick". Wonderful albums!

Having listened to the band's music in decades, I have never seen any video of the band. When I saw this CD in local CD store, I was interested to buy because I was so anxious to know about how wild the band on stage. (When I got the live set "Bursting Out" decades ago, I always imagined how wonderful seeing the band alive - well, I mean through a video not seeing them "thru my eyes" on stage). But, when I looked the back cover, it's a PAL video system and not NTSC which is common in my country. So, I did not buy it. Couple months later I got a message from my friend thru my mobile that he bought the DVD of this band with PAL version and the picture was really great. So, I decided to return to the local CD store. What a lucky guy! I got the other version of the DVD, i.e. complete with the audio CD of the show with insignificant price different. So, I bought it .Yeah .. TULL is now at my hand!

I was surprised with the quality of this DVD: excellent! The picture and the sound quality are fantastic! More importantly, I love the performance of the band on stage. They are all grand pas but they play their music with passion. Ian Anderson does sing and plays flute with energetic movement on stage. It's a fantastic show! Well, as my personal taste, actually I like the live stage filmed without any narration or interruption between tracks. In this DVD, I find that. But it's OK as I just consider this DVD as documentary anyway. In fact, I got the CD (with some songs are not featured). But in another way, the interviews with band members are interesting also as you would know the musicians' experience with the band.

One of the interesting shots is when there are two songs that was performed "unplugged" in a stately home with a string orchestra: violin, cellos. Ian uses his acoustic guitar while singing. He and the string quartet perform "Wond'ring Aloud" , "Life is a Long Song". I also love the "Thick As A Brick" (edited) was performed nicely. I actually do not like the "edited" version of TAAB, that's why I never interested to buy Tull's the Best because I'm sure TAAB has been edited. I really want to see the band performs the whole Thick As A Brick in its entirety. That will be an adrenalin- exploding experience for me!

I also like when "Bouree" is performed on stage. The performance is really top notch! The bass guitar solo is funny and an interesting act. Overall, the band plays their classic excellently, like "My Sunday Feeling", "Crossed-Eyed Mary", "Jack In The Green", "A Song for Jeffrey", "Aqualung", "Locomotive Breath", "Living In The Past" etc. and the stuffs from later album "Hunt By Numbers" (Dot Com album) and "Roots To Branches" (album title). The other interesting part is the interview with TULL fans. Well, this is an excellent addition to any prog collection. Highly recommended. Keep on progging!

Progressively yours,

GW - Indonesia