Review: Jethro Tull, Grand Opera House, York

10:30am Wednesday 14th May 2008

A FEW minutes after it was announced the Jethro Tull train was York-bound, the grand old engine came a rollin' in and immediately transported the audience back to the dying days of steam.

It was 1968, and This Was, a pioneering album in many ways, had just been released. Off chugged frontman/flautist extraordinaire Ian Anderson and his latest ensemble of furnace-stokers with some pretty faithful renditions. It was Tull's 40th anniversary tour and they had a greater range of tracks from which to choose than train drivers do at Crewe. Yet it had been determined that they were going to restrict themselves, pretty much to their early, more blues-influenced, work.

Appropriately for the day of the week, they started with My Sunday Feeling. Apart from a minor derailment with a vintage wah-wah, Martin Barre's guitar work, while not wildly exciting, remains crisp and melodic. And the new boys on keyboards and bass certainly helped the pistons turn over during a rousing Thick As A Brick. But the engine drivers were drummer Doane Perry, who built up a modern, metallic, head of steam in Locomotive Breath and wildman Anderson with his eccentric stagecraft and unique, virtuoso flute breaks.

It had been 20 years since I'd last seen Tull riding on the Crest Of A Knave. It does seem, despite their possession of OAP railcards, as if the train just won't stop a rollin'.

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