Life is a Long Song

Saw the living legend -- Jethro Tull -- yesterday. The Roman Amphitheatre in Caesarea is a perfect setting -- older even than Jethro Tull themselves. They opened with the excellent Life is a Long Song and Living in the Past and it went on to be better and better. Yes -- Ian is a big man who plays a very little guitar, he jumps around on the stage, dances silly British folk dances, and of course -- plays his flute with his foot up. And he tells silly jokes. It was wonderful -- they are true professionals and they have soul too. There were some weak points, let's finish with it quickly: first, Budapest is completely un-Tull, it would fit Lou Reed maybe. They should've played Thick as a Brick instead, and there are around 2000 people to agree with me, but then i've seen Brick played very well by Eggroll, so it's OK. Also, there was Martin Barre's solo instrumental, which can serve as a definition of the "guitar-virtuoso" style, which i am not particularly fond of. But r0z would probably love it. Then there were the folksy, mostly instrumental, numbers from the recently released "Jethro Tull Christmas Album" and Ian Anderson's "Rupi's Dance". And they were even good, but Ian himself said something in the lines of "This is very bad programming ... The 'Christmas Album' stuff means nothing at all to you". And on that Hadar remarked -- "I thought they were supposed to be heavier" and it sums it up very well.

But why whine, when there were the heavy Aqualung and also a marvelous rendition of Mother Goose with the keyboardist Andrew Giddings playing block flute through his nose. And the brillant, passionate electrobluesy New Day Yesterday. And the giant balloons with a picture of Ian thrown at the crowd during the encore.

Plus -- i was really happy that i bought the expensive seats. It really changes the picture. Whoa, i'm filthy rich.