I’ve not been to a gig since just before Christmas, but I’ve had these tickets booked for almost that long.
Thick As A Brick (TAAB), by Jethro Tull, was released in 1972, and this tour is the first time it has been played in its entirety since then. Recently, Thick As A Brick 2 (TAAB2) has also been released. Both albums were played tonight.
To anyone who doesn’t know, the original TAAB – on vinyl, so two sides – consisted of just two tracks (which were actually one single song!). It was a deliberate send up of rock pretentiousness and everything that surrounded it. The album claimed to have been written by an 8-year old – more sending up of some of prog rock’s allegedly pretentious lyrics, and possibly an explanation as to why Ian Anderson now has a Sunday evening show on Planet Rock specifically looking at lyrics, both good and bad.
Taking all that aside, TAAB has some brilliant and memorable riffs. All of those were there tonight, with some modern additions. Apparently, some of TAAB was recorded as single improvisational takes (more information on the Jethro Tull website).
Anyway, the current presentation is a cleverly constructed play – almost an opera – involving all the musicians. Obviously, Ian Anderson’s flute playing is a major highlight, but the rest of the band were absolutely superb. It was a fantastic show
The sections were broken by short comedy skits, showing Anderson’s clever sense of humour. There was a 20 minute intermission between the two albums, allowing me to ascertain that the Assembly Rooms really was charging £4 for a lager – and I won’t call it a pint, because I don’t think it was. And on top of that, it seems that they also don’t allow any sort of photography (some guy was told to stop it when he took a picture on his mobile phone – I’ll blame the Assembly Rooms, as I would have thought Ian Anderson wouldn’t have cared). That was a bugger, because I’d got tickets for the second row, so we were right up close and any photos would have been brilliant. So I’ll just have to do with mid-20th century memories instead of 21st century memorabilia.
We also discovered that Tuesday night is probably the worse night of the week to try and get a curry (everywhere was shut). We eventually found that the Everest Tandoori in Ruddington was about to close, but they stayed open for us and did us a really nice meal.
A great night, with a great show and a great meal to round it off.
Oh, and it really is worth getting hold of the two albums and giving them a listen.