Tull Tales
I thought I’d share with you, this post I sent to Jethro Tull’s Facebook page, where it quickly disappeared into a hole of apathy:
I’d been thinking about how Ian Anderson always says he disliked the name Jethro Tull. I believe he thought people would be confused, that maybe they’d think Jethro Tull was the bloke jumping around front of stage with the codpiece and tights. But now he’s brought about the exact situation he feared, where even diehard Tull fans can’t tell the difference between Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson (and his band).
Martin Luther King style, I had a dream. I was at a gig watching Jethro Tull. But I didn’t recognise the bandmembers. Ian Anderson was there of course, marshalling the troops, playing acoustic and flute, the occasional backing vocal. But the main singing duties had been handed over to some new frontman, who could do justice to the material.
In fact, all the band was quite young – made up of cherry-picked stellar new talent, recruited from YouTube. And there was new music. Because these guys could not only play the old stuff with verve and vigour, they could write in the Tull style too. It had become a collaborative band; Ian took his ideas to the band who arranged them to his liking. Likewise, the band came up with their own musical ideas, and if they got the thumbs-up from the boss, they got included.
Suddenly, it was a proper band again, and this was reflected in the live performance. These weren’t just some hired hands plodding though the show to pick up their pay cheques – these guys were Tull fans, in their dream job, properly invested in the music, because they’d been involved in the writing and arranging. And it showed in their performance. This was clearly a separate band – not just Anderson and his regular backing band under a different name.
Suddenly, Tull had become a band to be in – a stepping stone to a rosy career, like having played in Zappa’s band or Miles Davis’ band. Something to be proud of in your CV. Furthermore, it seemed like this was a band with a future. If need be, come the day when old Mr Anderson decided to hang up his flute – the band could possibly carry on, with his blessing, keeping the music alive, rather in the way that Gong and several other bands have. Some fans, of course, would not tolerate this. Some, for whom the music was the most important thing – absolutely would. And so would I.
Then I woke up. The PC was still on, in front of me, playing some old YouTube clip of Tull/Anderson at a festival performing Thick As A Brick. The band looked bored. The singing was
not the best. The crowd weren’t paying much attention, chattering amongst themselves. Oh well.
This may or may not be true.
Steve Vaughan