I confess my innermost secret: I am a Jethro Tull fan of more than thirty years. And last night I experienced one of those thrills that come rarely in a person’s life – a Jethro Tull concert. In Bergen, the Jeddah of the north (you know, given that Norway is the Saudi Arabia of the north, as the now defunct Vulgar Marxist puts it, then Bergen is …). Long way to go, I know, just for a concert, but it was worth it, I tell thee, worth it and more. And just to make sure I get the full experience, I am off to see them again when they come to Oslo on Saturday.
One of the nice things about Tull is that they are still around, 42 years after they began back in ’68. No mooning about for me, hoping they might get back together for a reunion concert, or lamenting the death/suicide/overdose of one or another of the band members. Just continuous concerts since the 1960s. Here’s Ian Anderson at the Marquee Club in ’68:
I first got into Tull in the late 1970s, after they had been around for slightly less than a decade and I’m still hooked.
That poster, by the way, is now mine in duplicate. Check out more, much more, at the Jethro Tull website.
20 August, 2010 at 6:52 am
Ha me too and no secret niva. Inherited them off an addicted brother in the late 70s while in the South Island driving around in a big 15 citroen… spent a winter down there listening to Ian playing that sticky staccato on flute. Skating away ever since. Lucky you. Lucky lucky LUCKY you.
20 August, 2010 at 9:58 pm
There a bloke two seats across for whom this was his first Jethro Tull concert ever. Needless to say, he was a little excited, yelling out during the performance ‘Tick as a Brick!!!’
20 August, 2010 at 10:45 am
Ah. Takes me back. I spent many hours listening to Thick as a Brick. I wonder where it is now. Someone at my brother’s place I expect. Enjoy the Oslo concert. Are you coming back for the Utopias conference?
20 August, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Actually, the best stuff for me was from the 80s, especially when they won the inaugural MTV heavy metal music award over against Metallica – with Crest of a Knave feom 1987. In reply to outrage from the three Metallica fans, Tull took out an ad with a flute on it, saying ‘The flute IS a heavy metal instrument’. When metallica won the award a couple of years later, they said, ‘We’d just like to thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year’.
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