Photo by Martin Webb

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson Plays Thick as a Brick 1 & 2
Filene Center, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts
Vienna, Va.
July 16,

Poor Tom.

It seemed he really did just want to use the restroom.

The balding, middle-aged fellow was working his way slowly past the bags, water bottles, and various what not belonging to those in the front row of an outdoor, Washington, D.C.-area amphitheater, when he was stopped midway toward his destination by none other than Jethro Tull’s founder and front man Ian Anderson, who was on stage performing his prog-rock masterpiece Thick as a Brick and its 2012 companion piece Thick as a Brick II.

Was it just happenstance that found Tom working his way past the stage at the Filene Center, Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, Vienna, Va., when Anderson took a musical break to remind the audience that prostate exams, though unpleasant, save lives?

No matter. Whether Tom was drafted as a patient seeking a prostate exam by chance – as was concertgoer “Richard” whom Anderson anointed “Dr. Richard” and ushered backstage to perform a faux exam on Tom – or recruited pre-show, he handled his role with aplomb. After the exam, Tom strode from the stage (and likely toward the restroom!) as a photo tribute to well-known entertainers, including Frank Zappa, who died of the cancer in the years since TAAB was released, played on a giant screen above the stage.

Indeed, the photographic reminders of some of those who have passed since Thick as a Brick was released underscored that plenty has changed since the music was first heard. In a way, that concept album was an act of defiance on Anderson’s part after journalists and fans hailed his 1971 Aqualung as a concept triumph. Anderson continually denies that Aqualung was more than a collection of songs. So adamant were fans and critics, though, that he wrote TAAB as an over-the-top concept album about a fictional boy genius Gerald Bostock. But a funny thing happened when Anderson revisited Bostock all these years later. In imagining how fate had treated his hero, Anderson analyzed the twists and turns of his own life.
“It was a purely intellectual proposition, suddenly coming up with what had befallen Gerald 40 years down the line,” Anderson said from his London office as he prepared for the tour. “In considering shifts in luck and intervention it caused me to look back at my own life and consider that things might have turned out completely differently….Some of the album is dark. It’s not all fun and laughter.”

Not that the causal observer in the Wolf Trap audience would have noticed.

Anderson methodically built the show with plenty of humor injected right from the start when the band members – wearing caps and trench coats (painful to watch in the oppressive heat and humidity!) in their roles as cleaning people – take the stage just before the concert. So artful are the disguises that one can almost feel the slow awareness of recognition drift through the audience.

Yes, another triumph for the master showman.

As he and his band worked through the set list, playing songs that ruminated on everything from love to social concerns, to religion and war, he kept up a steady stream of playfulness – from standing on one leg while playing his flute (he is, after all, the embodiment of the title of Tull’s 1975 album Minstrel in the Gallery), to video of everything from a scuba diver stomping about an urban area searching for water (a nod to Aqualung) to Anderson on the cover of Jethro Tull’s 1978 album Heavy Horses, to grim images of war.

An inspired video, that he also presented during his 2012 Liverpool, England, concert, had celebrated violinist Anna Phoebe interrupt the concert, with an ill-timed telephone call to Anderson. The violinist, who has played with everyone from Trans-Siberian Orchestra to Sean Combs and Tull, called back via Skype (in a pre-recorded bit, of course) and alternated between showing the audience her infant and playing her violin along with the band on the song known as “Thick as a Brick (Edit 4)” from the 1977 album Repeat – The Best of Jethro Tull – Volume II.

Yet for all the humor, those that pay close attention to the show certainly understood the messages as Bostock via Anderson morphed into various personas including a homeless man, money grubbing preacher, unscrupulous banker, lone shark and stuffy shopkeeper. The high-energy show that clocked in at almost 2 ½ hours would be difficult for anyone to pull off, but Anderson and his band did so with aplomb despite the oppressive humidity.

If anything the weather seemed to super-charge Anderson who amped up his boyish humor and stage antics as he worked his way through a set that was equal parts Tull and parody something in the style of the beloved 1984 rockumentary Spinal Tap.

If Anderson’s age shows at all, it’s in his voice. He’s reworked some of his music so it better suits his mature range and tone and, of course, divides vocal duties with O’Donnell. It was interesting to watch Anderson swap vocals with his young alter ego, O’Donnell, who often mirrors his physical stance on stage including the famous one-legged pose Anderson strikes while playing flute.

For all the fan griping about the absence of beloved players from the contemporary classic Tull line up – notably lead guitarist extraordinaire Martin Barre and drummer Doane Perry – the current band including guitarist Florian Opahle, bassist David Goodier, drummer Scott Hammond and keyboardist John O’Hara clearly suit this tour. Their virtuosity is a given but it’s the fresh perspective they bring to the music – literally in the cases of the youthful Opahle and O’Donnell – that givens TAAB a contemporary texture.

And one wonders if his bandmates’ enthusiasm has put Anderson in a more generous mood. On the U.S. tour he offers an encore, something he didn’t do in England, of the classic “Locomotive Breath.”

It’s difficult not to laugh, even chuckle, when you realize that Anderson’s new band of merry music men have his back in many ways. Anderson has been looked upon by some as a curmudgeon for his stated annoyance when drunken or overly proprietary fans scream out “Rock and Roll!” and, of course, “Aqualung!” during soulful musical interludes.

“To the guy who shouted ‘play aqualung!’ tonight in a quiet section,” tweeted O’Donnell after a recent show. “I hope u stubb ur toe and some one knocks a wing mirror off your car!”

Now that’s rock n’ roll with a modern twist.