July 1, 1973 Review: Jethro Tull at the Aud

 

The second of three brain-bending concerts in quick succession in Memorial Auditoirum in the summer of 1973. This was Tull’s answer to that year’s craze for concept albums.  

July 1, 1973

Tull Brings Drama, Ballet, Movies to Buffalo 

          The comparison hovered on the steam in Memorial Auditorium Sunday night.

          “You shoulda heard Pink Floyd with all the speakers up on the sides,” the kid who doesn’t belong in the next seat says. “It was panasonic.”

          What with Pink Floyd amazing some 14,000 souls with all that fire and smoke and sound just nine days ago, you know Jethro Tull is going to have to be something else.

          The crowd, which fills all but the uppermost orange seats behind the stage (maybe those folks move down to sit in the aisles) includes one dude in a straitjacket and numerous firecracker tossers, whom Ian Anderson disdainfully labels “children.”

          Leading off is Steeleye Span, another British band on the same record label as Tull, who don’t have any stage gimmicks to help out, just music, traditional British folk songs shot up with rhythm and electricity. Olde English folk-rock.

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THEIR SPIRITED Irish jig leave a nice feeling, but the Aud is too big for them. Standing out in the sextet, aside from the horsefly buzz of their Celtic harmonies, are the fiddle and their singing lady, who does jigs in a long white dress and has one of those clear, meant-for-folk voices, like Maria Muldaur’s.

          Tull brings on optional extras to dress up the space music from their new “Passion Play” album. The Greek masks for comedy and tragedy ride the lighting grid over the black and silver stage like a hood ornament. A screen descends.

          To a drummed heartbeat, a spot of light flashes on the screen, grows larger, hits a peak which kills the house lights and fades to a ghastly beautiful image of a ballerina lying dead, the ballerina image from “Passion Play.”

          Ultimately she rises from death and dances with a leap to the inside of a mirror. With that, Tull crashes to life, the music more varied but less rocking, less dynamic, the band’s mad stage prowling more intense than ever.

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IN THE MIDST of the proceedings, frizzy leader Ian Anderson, dressed in his by-now standard high boots, blue leotard, black codpiece and long smoking jacket, announces: “This is the story of the hare who lost his spectacles.”

          Off goes Tull, on comes a movie, silly stuff, a mock fairy tale with pre-recorded space music. More ballerinas on screen, dancing animals and a narrator in a checkered suit. Tull returns to finish out. The set lasts an hour and the band is offstage for nearly half of it.

          It appears for a moment that Ian Anderson & Co. are going to leave it at that, but then they’re back to do a medley of their better-known old stuff, a reward for having liked the unfamiliar “Passion Play.”

          The power of the old material inspires energy peaks, big ones coming after Tull’s second return when they light into “Aqualung,” Anderson thrashing about as if he is ignoring his own complaints about the 90-degree temperatures onstage.

* * *

A SWEATING audience lights matches to draw the band back for a third encore, this one from “Thick as a Brick.”

          Anderson does his grunting, growling, spluttering flute solo to cheers and Barriemore Barlow’s drum solo goes up in a cloud of smoke. Organist John Evan careens about the stage and Anderson, ever one to twit, clips the last word from the end of the song.

          Tull has met the Pink Floyd standard. As the satisfied throng streams to the mellow night outside, they’re reminded that a third mindwarp is due in two weeks. The clincher. Led Zeppelin.

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FOOTNOTE: I searched the microfilm in vain for a review of that June 22 Pink Floyd show, anybody’s review. No luck.  

          Set lists are scarce on setlist.fm for the early part of that 1973 American tour. Buffalo was the second date. Nearest one I find is July 16 in Fort Worth, Texas. First 12 selections are the entire “Passion Play” album, then 10 more to finish, which include “Thick as a Brick,” “Cross-Eyed Mary,” “Aqualung” and “Locomotive Breath.” According to Wikipedia, the “Passion Play” album wasn’t released until three weeks after the Buffalo date.

          As for Steeleye Span, they had started injecting more electric guitar into their folk-rock in 1972 and were becoming more popular in the wake of their “Below the Salt” album. The singer in question is the great Maddy Prior, who is still singing with them. Fiddler is Peter Knight, who came aboard in 1972.