Saturday night I saw Ian Anderson’s Jethro Tull The Rock Opera tour at Devos Hall in Grand Rapids Michigan. I had debated about attending this one. The last time I saw Ian a few years ago his voice was in really rough shape and I was not really sure how this Rock Opera concept was going to work. Walking away from the show Saturday night I am still not sure how I feel about it. The whole show is played to a film in which band members and vocalists sing lead vocals along with Ian. Ian’s band was live with keys, drums, bass, and a really good young guitarist along with Ian and his flute / acoustic guitar. Ian’s voice has been pretty much shot for years, and things have not improved any, as his range is very narrow and he has very little power behind his voice. As mentioned earlier a lot of the vocals were done on the film with a male and two female vocalists doing many of the vocals recorded ahead of time. Due to playing along with the film the whole thing has a bit of canned feeling to it. One of the fun things about Anderson / Tull shows in the past has been Ian’s between song banter and storytelling sessions. There is none of that in this show since everything is timed to the film there is no real spontaneity. The set list was pretty cool as he interweaved old Tull songs with new material to form the narrative of the story. I am not really sure that I got what the story was all about though as the plot seemed a bit murky. In the end I guess I applaud Ian for trying something new and finding a way to compensate for his vocal issues, but I think it would have worked much better if the other vocalists would have actually been live on stage. His band was very good for the most part, and as mentioned earlier the guitarist really stood out with some killer solos on and off throughout the evening. He especially nailed it during “Locomotive Breath”. Even though I have heard that song way too many times over the years, they really breathed some new life into the old warhorse Saturday night. Whether or not I would recommend this show or not to others is a tough one. I enjoyed it, but it is far from what Ian / Tull were in their heyday. Here is the set list:
HEAVY HORSES
WIND UP
AQUALUNG
WITH YOU THERE TO HELP ME
BACK TO THE FAMILY
FARM ON THE FREEWAY
PROSPEROUS PASTURE
FRUITS OF FRANKENFIELD
SONGS FROM THE WOOD
INTERMISSION
AND THE WORLD FEEDS ME
LIVING IN THE PAST
JACK IN THE GREEN
THE WITCH’S PROMISE
WEATHERCOCK
STICK, TWIST, BUST
CHEAP DAY RETURN
A NEW DAY YESTERDAY
THE TURNSTILE GATE
LOCOMOTIVE BREATH
ENCORE
REQUIEM AND FUGUE
Bookmarks