Post by admin on Aug 17, 2009 7:29:23 GMT
from www.dailystar.com.lb
Jumping jacks and a dragonfly drummer
Veteran rockers Jethro Tull take Byblos fans by storm
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
REVIEW
BYBLOS: “Finally Jethro Tull in Lebanon,” read one flapping banner, “… We’ve been waiting 35 years.” For the legendary band’s first performance in the Middle East, the waterfront venue of the Byblos International Festival was literally swarming with legions of fans. Hippies, burly motorcyclists, the young and the prim – those who turned up for Sunday’s concert were as colorfully varied as the music they came to enjoy. As the assembled reluctantly took their seats – incongruous at a rock concert – the air was heavy with impatient excitement. Steadily, the sound of thumping feet grew to a maddening roar. The pied pipers of Byblos had arrived.
Now 61 years old, Jethro Tull front man Ian Anderson still exudes some of the iconic magic remembered fondly by older fans. Though no longer clad in the dark green leotards of his elvin youth, and though his agility may have been hindered by the onset of septuagenarian arthritis, Anderson did manage to revive his past stage presence, albeit a more subdued version.
Replacing his time-honored method of hopping ecstatically across the stage, the ageing flautist now settled for fleeting flamingo poses and what could be best described as half-arsed attempts at jumping jacks.
While Anderson’s cautious antics may have left some feeling a trifle disappointed, others recalled that a whopping 41 years have passed since Jethro Tull released their first album, “This Was.” The rockers went on to produce 23 more records, often at a rate of one a year. So it’s only natural that time has hindered Anderson’s ability to strike notes – indeed that he often he missed them completely. On the flute, however, the instrument that defines him, Anderson was still as good as ever, if not better.
Unlike some of his rock’n’roll contemporaries, Anderson is comically aware of the weight of the years. Bringing the extended flute intro of “My God” to an abrupt end, he feigned geriatric injury from overexertion, drawing fits of laughter from the crowd.
After a song from Jethro Tull’s debut album, Anderson stared into the crowd and said with a serious face, “Now something a little more recent … from 1969.” His irony, combined with bouts of chatty monologue on topics ranging from his son’s latest TV performance to Henry XIII’s penchant for chopping off his wives’ heads, created a nostalgic rapport struck by a meeting of old friends.
Indeed, the rogue flautist chose to introduce several songs with lively conversation, offering up witty retrospections upon the band’s history and influences. Homage was paid to jazz musician Ray Swinfield before a performance of “Serenade to a Cuckoo,” the first song Anderson learned to play on the flute. Later, he provoked yet more mirth by self-deprecatingly introducing the band’s rendition of “Bouree,” an instrumental piece inspired by Johan Sebastian Bach’s “Suite in E Minor for Lute,” as their “best attempt to completely ruin it.”
Unfortunately, the lethargy of guitarist Martin Barre and bassist David Goodier dampened Anderson’s efforts. The silver-haired musicians hardly moved throughout the performance, as firmly rooted to the ground as the ruins looming up behind them.
In a subtle overture, which only the most astute of fans got, Anderson alluded to ‘Heavy Horses,” a hit from the band’s 1978 album of the same name. “Some years ago,” he quipped in his crystalline, story-teller’s voice, “I used to be the proud owner of two Ford tractors, two combine harvesters and, of course, a seed drill.” He referred to a certain Mr. Jethro Tull, the band’s namesake, the 18th-century agriculturist who invented the then-revolutionary seed drill.
Despite Anderson’s penchant for agriculture (he owns a salmon farm in Scotland), he did not choose the name. In a twist of fate only fit for rock’n roll, it was coined by the band’s agent ahead of a London gig. When the musicians were unexpectedly invited to perform at the venue a second time, the band had no other choice but to keep the name.
If a traditional rock concert was what the crowd was after, that is what they got. After a tongue-in-cheek warning by Anderson that there would be no return to the indulgent and prolonged percussion sequences that so characterized the music of the 1970s provoked boos from the crowd, he conceded to “a teensy-weensy drum solo.”
For drummer Marc Mondesir, that translated into a three-and-a-half-minute frenzy during the band’s performance of “Dharma for One.” At one point, Mondesir beat away so furiously that his arms resembled the wings of a dragonfly, sending a cymbal hurtling to the floor. Such stupendous energy was easily a highlight of the concert and would have dissipated any bouts of boredom that could have arisen in the audience beforehand.
Though wildly shortened for the 90 minute set, each Jethro Tull song was its own metaphor for the band’s progression, its own epic journey across space and time. Here we linger through emerald fields of enchanted flute solos, caught somewhere between the Renaissance and Neverland; there, we are plunged into the roaring, crashing ocean of 20th-century rock’n’roll. Just as suddenly, we are lulled back into a false sense of security by feathery jazz ballads, before once again being tossed back into the stormy seas.
At the end of all this tumultuous instrumental insanity, the audience sat, gob-smacked at the fact that, for a moment, a mere mortal in a black and grey waistcoat blowing on a shiny pipe can make all the unpredictable, unintelligible fragments of our world seem so magical. Who cares if he’s got grey hair?
Jumping jacks and a dragonfly drummer
Veteran rockers Jethro Tull take Byblos fans by storm
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
REVIEW
BYBLOS: “Finally Jethro Tull in Lebanon,” read one flapping banner, “… We’ve been waiting 35 years.” For the legendary band’s first performance in the Middle East, the waterfront venue of the Byblos International Festival was literally swarming with legions of fans. Hippies, burly motorcyclists, the young and the prim – those who turned up for Sunday’s concert were as colorfully varied as the music they came to enjoy. As the assembled reluctantly took their seats – incongruous at a rock concert – the air was heavy with impatient excitement. Steadily, the sound of thumping feet grew to a maddening roar. The pied pipers of Byblos had arrived.
Now 61 years old, Jethro Tull front man Ian Anderson still exudes some of the iconic magic remembered fondly by older fans. Though no longer clad in the dark green leotards of his elvin youth, and though his agility may have been hindered by the onset of septuagenarian arthritis, Anderson did manage to revive his past stage presence, albeit a more subdued version.
Replacing his time-honored method of hopping ecstatically across the stage, the ageing flautist now settled for fleeting flamingo poses and what could be best described as half-arsed attempts at jumping jacks.
While Anderson’s cautious antics may have left some feeling a trifle disappointed, others recalled that a whopping 41 years have passed since Jethro Tull released their first album, “This Was.” The rockers went on to produce 23 more records, often at a rate of one a year. So it’s only natural that time has hindered Anderson’s ability to strike notes – indeed that he often he missed them completely. On the flute, however, the instrument that defines him, Anderson was still as good as ever, if not better.
Unlike some of his rock’n’roll contemporaries, Anderson is comically aware of the weight of the years. Bringing the extended flute intro of “My God” to an abrupt end, he feigned geriatric injury from overexertion, drawing fits of laughter from the crowd.
After a song from Jethro Tull’s debut album, Anderson stared into the crowd and said with a serious face, “Now something a little more recent … from 1969.” His irony, combined with bouts of chatty monologue on topics ranging from his son’s latest TV performance to Henry XIII’s penchant for chopping off his wives’ heads, created a nostalgic rapport struck by a meeting of old friends.
Indeed, the rogue flautist chose to introduce several songs with lively conversation, offering up witty retrospections upon the band’s history and influences. Homage was paid to jazz musician Ray Swinfield before a performance of “Serenade to a Cuckoo,” the first song Anderson learned to play on the flute. Later, he provoked yet more mirth by self-deprecatingly introducing the band’s rendition of “Bouree,” an instrumental piece inspired by Johan Sebastian Bach’s “Suite in E Minor for Lute,” as their “best attempt to completely ruin it.”
Unfortunately, the lethargy of guitarist Martin Barre and bassist David Goodier dampened Anderson’s efforts. The silver-haired musicians hardly moved throughout the performance, as firmly rooted to the ground as the ruins looming up behind them.
In a subtle overture, which only the most astute of fans got, Anderson alluded to ‘Heavy Horses,” a hit from the band’s 1978 album of the same name. “Some years ago,” he quipped in his crystalline, story-teller’s voice, “I used to be the proud owner of two Ford tractors, two combine harvesters and, of course, a seed drill.” He referred to a certain Mr. Jethro Tull, the band’s namesake, the 18th-century agriculturist who invented the then-revolutionary seed drill.
Despite Anderson’s penchant for agriculture (he owns a salmon farm in Scotland), he did not choose the name. In a twist of fate only fit for rock’n roll, it was coined by the band’s agent ahead of a London gig. When the musicians were unexpectedly invited to perform at the venue a second time, the band had no other choice but to keep the name.
If a traditional rock concert was what the crowd was after, that is what they got. After a tongue-in-cheek warning by Anderson that there would be no return to the indulgent and prolonged percussion sequences that so characterized the music of the 1970s provoked boos from the crowd, he conceded to “a teensy-weensy drum solo.”
For drummer Marc Mondesir, that translated into a three-and-a-half-minute frenzy during the band’s performance of “Dharma for One.” At one point, Mondesir beat away so furiously that his arms resembled the wings of a dragonfly, sending a cymbal hurtling to the floor. Such stupendous energy was easily a highlight of the concert and would have dissipated any bouts of boredom that could have arisen in the audience beforehand.
Though wildly shortened for the 90 minute set, each Jethro Tull song was its own metaphor for the band’s progression, its own epic journey across space and time. Here we linger through emerald fields of enchanted flute solos, caught somewhere between the Renaissance and Neverland; there, we are plunged into the roaring, crashing ocean of 20th-century rock’n’roll. Just as suddenly, we are lulled back into a false sense of security by feathery jazz ballads, before once again being tossed back into the stormy seas.
At the end of all this tumultuous instrumental insanity, the audience sat, gob-smacked at the fact that, for a moment, a mere mortal in a black and grey waistcoat blowing on a shiny pipe can make all the unpredictable, unintelligible fragments of our world seem so magical. Who cares if he’s got grey hair?