2011年 Feb 20日 Sunday, 14:54
Sat 19 Feb – Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson Live in Cyprus
My high expectations were not deceived last night as Ian Anderson and co. put on a magnificent performance. The set was full of Jethro Tull classics with only one song off Ian's solo project. It is really sad, however, that the Eleftheria Stadium was half-empty - was it the company's (Naked Panda Entertainment) fault which put the tickets at such absurd high prices? This is the most likely answer as the €25 seats looked sold out. Nevertheless, the band did not let itself worry about this and gave out an exceptionally brilliant performance.
After a slight delay, as the band most probably was waiting for the stadium to fill up, Ian and co. went on stage and started off with the legendary Living In The Past. Nothing Is Easy followed right after. The acoustics of the stadium were satisfactory with all instruments sounding very clearly. It was Ian's voice, however, that could disappoint some. The vocal problems could be noticed right from the beginning with Living In The Past as the vocals were slightly rusty and Ian could not hit off most of those high notes. Nevertheless, his and the band's performance with their talented instrument playing paid off greatly. Especially the entertaining improvisation that we could hear during tracks such as Hare In The Wine Cup or A Change of Horses. The guitarist, Florian Opahle, who is the youngest band member and who was born when Jethro Tull were already sky high famous in the rock 'n' roll world, entertained us with an interpretation of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. In Ian's words it was a "heavy metal, guitar shredding" interpretation. We also heard the famous Tull cover of the "three hundred year old" piece: Bourée which electrified the crowd.
After a 20 minute intermission, the band started off with a 10 minute version of Thick As A Brick. At the end of the song Ian and the lads encouraged the crowd to participate and shout out the "brick" part of the chorus. Overall, the crowd response throughout the gig was quite active - especially when taken into account that the majority was too old to rock 'n' roll… but too young to die! Respect to the metalheads who refused to sit down and rocked out by the barriers!
The electric finale of the concert consisted of the two most anticipated songs: Aqualung and Locomotive Breath. After Aqualung, most of the crowd was so excited that started to shout out demanding more to be played. The band could not disappoint us and so, after a few minutes, the keyboardist/accordionist John O'Hara appeared like an apparition in front of the strong light and started playing the famous intro of Locomotive Breath. Ian Anderson and co. received a standing ovation from the Cypriot crowd.
What, I believe, needs to be stressed out is what Ian Anderson mentioned in-between the songs. It was about him finding it slightly bizarre that in the 70s, Tull got labeled as folk-rock. This, indeed, moves a more serious topic as to why we need to label music bands with different genres. After all it's just music that all music bands or orchestras are playing. Music labelling usually leads to a certain unnecessary class-hatred. Anyway, let's not go any deeper into that. Ian Anderson's first gig in Cyprus was a tremendous one, full of amazing stage presence and musical talent.