Jethro Tull 10/6/07 Thousand Oaks, Ca

Saw JT last night and it was a mixed bag for me. First off the TOCRC is a wonderful place. It is three tiered that seats about 1500-2000 with fantastic acoustics and a huge stage. We sat at the left side of the twelfth row and had great lines of vision.
I think this band has has been with him a few years at least most of them as I recognized them form the Living in the Past video. Very good players all of them. Of course, as always, Martin Lancelot Barre is to Ian's left on lead guitar. The set for me was a mixed bag. The first hour presented sometimes acoustic folk music side of JT. I am assuming at least three numbers were off his new CD as I did not recognize them. They did one from Song From The Wood called Velvet Green, Living in The Past and ended the hour with Bouree.
I was a bit stunned that all of this style of songs came in one lump. They used a lot of accordion with flute and some lead guitar. Don't get me wrong I do like this side of Tull but I was bit tired of it at the end of the hour. Luckily we got some classic Tull sound in the second set which started with a 7-8 minute Thick as Brick excerpt. Pretty much the same arrangement as the on afforementioned LWTP video. I prefer the 12-13 minute version off of Bursting Out but this wasn't bad. They then noded to blues style of the late sixties with Sweet Dreams. You could tell Ian's voice is not what it was as he strained on this one. But hey the guy is 60 so we will cut him a lot of slack. Next and in a ballsy move they played a new arrangement of Aqualung that dissected the song playing parts of it in different order with Ian playing the flute on some of the vocal lines. It was very good and I really enjoyed hearing this outside of the normal arrangement. They ended the song with the traditional arrangement once through the verses. I notcied mopre than few people leaving after this so kudos to them for playing it in the middle of the set.
After that Ian pulled a big surprise out by announcing the next song came from an arrangement of a Leonard Bernstein song by a contemporary of theirs from the late 60's early 70's and said a band that was led by Keyboardist Keith Emerson. The song was America from West Side Story and it was Keith's arrangement and it was very well done although I think if there more than a couple of hundred people who knew who Emerson was or even West Side Story I would have been surprised.
Then came the highlight for me which was My God from Aqualung played in its entirety. Great song, great energy and was they worth the price of admission alone. They ended the set with Budapest from Crest of a Knave which is OK but not a show ender in my opinion. Locomotive breath was the encore.

Not bad but I would hesitate to pay the prices I did for Tull in the future. Ian is still a rock solid performer and premier flutist and very entertaining host. He does play a great deal more flute than he used to in lieu of vocals. All in all a good trip down memory lane.

The price is why I didn't go to that show.

I paid $62.50 base and with all the added crap  almost $80.00 per seat.

I saw Tull last night in Joliet Illinois. They were at the beautiful Rialto Square Theater, which was reconditioned in the recent past. Great place for a concert.

We had seats in the front row of the balcony, dead center of the stage. Excellent seats, actually. My wife is "vertically-challenged" so if people stand up like at most shows she can't see the stage. The crowd was very well-behaved, with none of the usual ill-mannered things you see at many concerts.

The set list sounds similar to the original post, with most of the electric pieces played after the intermission. The band sounded great, as did Ian's flute playing. His voice was a bit rough, but he is 60. Still very recognizable.

Martin Barre played a song from his latest solo release, but the name of the song eluded me. I'll pick up his disc, since the song was very good. All but one of those songs are instrumentals from what I read.

Doane Perry is still the drummer, and he did a fine job as always. I enjoyed the keyboard playing, John O'Hara did the honors there. The bass player was David Goodier, and he played very well. This is a very good version of the band, to my ears.

I was especially excited to see Tull, since I've managed to miss them over the years.

Ian mentioned he had a new disc coming out, it sounds like it might be next month.

All in all, well worth the wait. I bought the tickets back in April I believe, so it was quite a wait.

If you can, go see them.

Madkinski wrote: "well behaved" meaning old and dull? Who wants a gray-haired, sit on their hands audience? This was once a rock band, don't forget. Also - Ian's voice is not rough because of age, so you folks should stop thinking that, there's plenty of 60 year-olds who can still sing. Ian's voice has been crap for 20 years (sadly) and it's the reason why their shows arent worth 80 bucks. sad. I would pay 500 bucks to seem them between 1975 and 1982.

It was the same the last time we saw Jethro Tull at the Bell Center three years ago. Some people were talking, other arrived late and annoyed others while they were going at their seats, some were smoking, some were shouting all the time, even during the piano solo, or when Ian Anderson was telling us some good stories.

^ Was it these same Jethro Tull fans that did the rioting at the Guns and Roses concert in Montreal when Axl had one of his famous no-shows?

Actually  at the Guns & Roses show they actually showed up, played 4 songs and then Axl told the audience to f off and walked off. You should have seen the riot when The Exploited got stopped at the border and couldn`t play a show at The Medley Club. $1million worth of damage on St Denis St overturned cars on fire computer store looted etc etc . Basically 800 upset punks.

Edited by Vibrationbaby - October 16 2007 at 11:54