Ian Anderson

Manchester Opera House

Sunday 22 April 2012

Written in Gran Canaria, Tuesday 02.10.12

My third visit to see Mr Anderson, the first two of them consisting of him under his virtual pseudonym of Jethro Tull. When this tour was announced, I wondered why it wasn't being billed as Jethro Tull, but being such a big fan, I thought "what the heck" and ordered a ticket anyway, he must do a few Tull numbers and not just dreary solo stuff that I hadn't heard before. In these days of austerity it's a bit of a gamble to pay out the cost of a concert ticket, but this time it paid off handsomely.

The reason for the strange billing was that, unknown to anyone but himself, he was shortly going to bring out a new solo album called "Thick As A Brick 2", which is of course a follow up to the prog rock classic "Thick As A Brick", released in 1972 by Jethro Tull. This tour was to play both albums in their entirety - what a treat, and I might have missed it had I been slow in getting the ticket.

Such follow up albums are notorious. Who, for instance remembers the likes of "Bat Out Of Hell 2" or "Tubular Bells 2"? I think they are generally seen as being an aged rock star cashing in his remaining chips hoping for a reasonable payout before he retires, making the last trade on a famous name. I've no doubt that this is what Ian Anderson has done here, and the decision to bill it as a solo album seems very strange indeed since it sounds exactly like Jethro Tull. It doesn't matter and I will never know, but I suspect the reason to be that his ego just doesn't want his band members sharing in his final glory, so he recorded this with his "solo band", for what difference it makes. All very well and good - but if the new album is a flop, the concert would suck too - so what is it like? Well, the CD arrived through my letter box a few weeks before the concert and it became welded to my iPhone, iTunes, and CD deck for months afterwards. It has defined my year like nothing else and I can't remember the last time that an album of music had thrilled me and engrossed me as much. The best similarity I can get is the effect that Pink Floyd's "The Wall" had on me when I first played it, and for that reason I say without any hesitation whatsoever that "Thick as a Brick 2" is the best album since 1979. A very big claim and it seems frankly astonishing, even to me - I have no doubt that there is no-one else in the world who will agree with me (except maybe Ian Anderson), but that's why music is such a good and very strange thing.

Thick as a Brick itself is a concept album from the glory days of progressive rock, when bands like Yes, Genesis, Emerson Lake and Palmer thought they could get away with anything, and frequently did. Jethro Tull had produced an album called "Aqualung" which was seen as a concept album, being the story of a tramp and some rants about the Church of England. Ian Anderson is evidently a very sensitive soul and so objected to it being called a concept album that he made the next album - Thick as a Brick" deliberately the concept album to out concept all concept albums, and on a massive scale. It has just one track, forty minutes long, spread over two sides of the LP, and lyrics of impenetrable denseness as to be unintelligellible. I've now idea what it all means, except that its supposed to be about a ten year old boy winning a poetry competition - but it's hard to tell. Whatever, in my mind it is one of the undisputed high peaks of the prog rock era - massively self indulgent, unintelligible, brilliant musically and it makes you think you need a degree to understand it. Of course you don't, it's just a normal series of songs on any old subject, all mashed and joined together and with a few recurring riffs to tie it up. They then play it synthesisers and massive Hammond organs and flutes and string sections to make it sound very important, when it isn’t really. The album sums up the very essence of progressive rock to me: Jethro Tull would never do anything quite as good again, and I think that only Pink Floyd could match it, but in quite a different way. It was thus one of my favourite all time classic albums and I much looked forward to hearing it performed in concert - but what of its successor, 40 years down the line? I shuddered!

Well, as I hinted above, "Thick As A Brick 2", released 40 years later in 2012 is one monster of a masterpiece, one of the best prog rock records of all time, and probably my vote for the best record since The Wall in 1979. Unlike The Wall it benefits by not being such an obvious personal agenda, but it doesn't have quite the worldwide clout as the former. I'm probably the only person in the world who rates it so highly - apart from Ian Anderson - but that's why music is such a wonderful thing.

The album takes on the story of the ten year old boy poetry competition winner and sees what happens to him in five scenarios over the next forty years, then ties up the loose ends and sees a possible future. It's classic prog rock territory, and he does it brilliantly well. Of course, what it's really about is looking back on a golden era forty years ago when all was hunky dory - then looking at five areas of society where there have been "newsworthy" developments - banking, religion, down and outs, military and the retail trade. "Down and outs" serves to develop the story of Aqualung and "retail trade" really means ordinary people, middle England, probably me. We see how chance etc has made these outcomes not what was hoped for, what the situation is now - a bit of a damnation on current society - and a possible future.

All in all, it's veritable wet dream stuff for prog rock fans of a certain vintage. Like the first album it's basically one track, but can be clearly be played as 17 separate ones if so desired. What transcends it to the level of true greatness is that in musical snippets, riffs, instrumentations and direct quotes, it directly references not only the first album, but the rest of Jethro Tull's career. Some may say that this is blatant plagiarism, but I say it is the work of true genius and what really makes the album - because in all honesty, only a hard core died in the wool Jethro Tull fan would notice it anyway.

After all that hype, could the concert possibly live up to its billing?

Sorry, not quite, but good try. The main problem is that Ian Anderson plainly can't sing anymore. A surrogate was brought in to sing the first album, with Ian singing a few lines here and there. Ian sang most of the second album, with the surrogate joining in here and there to ensure that his singing on the first album didn't appear so odd. Maybe an artistic reason could be given - perhaps the young singer represents the young boy, and Ian Anderson represents the older man. Perhaps. The real reason is of course that Ian Anderson simply can't hit the notes of the first album any more, so there's no point in him trying. He wrote the second album in a "talking" type of singing voice, so he can manage that fine. I know perfectly well that there could have been no concert if Ian had had to sing the whole lot, so a happy and almost artistic compromise was reached - but to be honest, something should have been said, because it looked suspiciously like "taking a bloody cheek".

Next moan is: no encores. This really is taking a bloody cheek. It's only a gesture to the audience, but not playing an encore just seems petty minded. He may argue that it would have taken away from the overall artistic concept - but hell's teeth, the undiscovered secret of prog rock is that it isn’t really meant to be taken seriously. I just think that his ego didn't like to play an encore, so he didn't, and sod the audience who have paid good money!

Moan number three: a perennial one - fair quality sound, but just not bloody loud enough - end of!!

Well, two tracks only - what of them?

Thick as A Brick was not how I remembered it. It seemed somehow "arranged", a little strange. The violinist playing live on Skype didn't work for me, it broke it up too much, it didn't add value and I'm not sure if it was even real. Never mind, I'm all for a bit of artistic licence, so no real problem.

As for Thick As A Brick 2 - it was a different experience completely. It was played with a sobriety and cold efficiency that permitted no deviation from the CD whatsoever. It could actually have been the CD for all I knew. Nothing was added, nothing was taken away, and I thought it was a bit of a cold experience of such a brilliant record. There were a few nice pictures and videos, Pink Floyd and Rush style, that added to the story of the music, but that is reasonably to be expected at this sort of concert anyway.

In conclusion - well done Ian - a marvellous and totally unexpectedly brilliant album at such a late stage of your career - but really, the concert didn't really live up to what it could have been.