When I was a boy I had an evening paper round for a few years. My route included going round the shopping arcade which housed Steve’s Sounds – the Yateley record shop. When I arrived, the shop would still be open and I’d drop in for a chat. This was the shop where I first heard Metallica, Accept, and many other metal bands before they became famous. These guys knew their stuff and also that I could afford an album a week on a paper-boy’s salary. One day they had huge display for Jethro Tull’s new album – ‘Broadsword & The Beast’. The album cover is this somewhat Tolkienised painting of Ian Anderson. There was also a giant cut-out Viking ship, from the back cover and lots of runes etc. I was entranced! I had to have this! Every night I’d check to see if the display had been taken down and could therefore be rescued for posterity. In the end, one of the staff grabbed the giant cardboard cut-outs, but I scored a couple of album sleeves, and from somewhere a taped copy of the album itself. It remains one of my favourite Tull albums – folk elements picked out with synthesizers, great songs and lovely Martin Barre solos.
None of which has anything to do with the concert. The gig was billed as ’25 years of Aqualung’. All credit to Ian Anderson, they delivered a great gig. Rather than just run through the album as quickly as possible before playing some greatest hits (hello, Bob Mould) they dropped the songs throughout the gig and re-worked them in new and interesting ways. The non-album songs were ones we hadn’t heard in concert for a while, and it was good fun. For no obvious reason, they also had a young lady playing violin every now and then. According to Setlist FM she was Lucia Micarelli; according to me she wasted a lot of time playing random non-Tull stuff. She DID contribute some really nice violin textures for a few of the songs, but overall it felt like set-dressing. It was a very good gig though, and a charity album of the Aqualung arrangements from this tour bears that out.
Sadly though, I think I was most excited at finally owning a t-shirt with the ‘Broadsword’ picture on it!