Really don’t mind if you sit this one out

1

I returned from spring vacation early.  In order to go skiing at Sugarbush with my mother and little sister.

It was a glorious day in the April sunshine.  But, after dropping me back at Middlebury around dinnertime, my mother and Wendy got back in the Country Squire and drove south to Connecticut.  And, I roamed the dorm.  Looking to see if anybody was back.

Most people don’t return from vacation until the day before classes start.  The halls were almost empty.  But this guy from Boston, whom I knew every so slightly, as you know everybody at a small college slightly, and greet them as possible friends, before the years pass and you settle into your group, approached me just after the sun dropped and we fell into a discussion of music.  He had a tape of a new Jethro Tull album, called "My God", he’d gotten it from a friend at home, did I want to hear it?

I went to his room and sat on the carpet in the dark.  And out of giant speakers I heard what was to soon become one of the biggest records of the year when it was released under its proper title, "Aqualung".

I hadn’t been a Jethro Tull fan.  Until the first weekend of school the fall before.  When I almost got killed in Moron’s Trans Am as "To Cry You A Song" poured out of the speakers.  All the reviewers, whom I read religiously, pooh-poohed "Benefit", the album from which contained "To Cry You A Song", but as Moron continued to play the album across the hall, I became hooked.  I broke down, I bought it.

Funny how you become a fan.  It starts with a casual movement.  And then it’s like love.  You want to see the person all the time, you want to know more, breaking up is hard to do.

And in this era, you became a fan the same way you do today. 

There were no singles.  You had a friend, were in somebody’s room, you heard something and became intoxicated.

The whole business was predicated on this fandom.  This rabidity.

It’s this rabidity which is returning.  As people reject the major label paradigm.  Glossy evanescent hits that slide right off of you.  People want more.  They want their souls touched, they want meaning.

2

I got off of Tull with the "Bungle In The Jungle" stuff.

But then, in ’88, just after CDs reached mainstream penetration, as labels started releasing boxed sets, Chrysalis issued a three CD twentieth anniversary set containing rarities, alternate takes…it was a cornucopia.  And I became religiously hooked.  As you only can when no one is paying attention.

It’s hard to become a fan of what everybody else is down with.  It’s what you discover in the nooks and crannies that you love.  That which you have for yourself.  At least for a while.

I’d spin songs like "Jack-A-Lynn" over and over on my newly-purchased CD player.  I was rewriting history.  In my mind at least.  Jethro Tull was something special, something great.

And I don’t need you to agree with me.  I don’t need to convince you.  It’s just a special tribe.  But not that small of a one.  This fall’s twenty two date sold out tour proves it.

The Kodak is not prepared for rock shows.  It’s the first time I’ve ever been to Hollywood & Highland and had to worry about getting a parking place.  There weren’t enough ushers.  In a building I rarely go to.  That ANYBODY rarely goes to.  Rock lives at Staples.  The Wiltern.  The El Rey.

But that’s not the way it used to be.  Rock grew up in multipurpose THEATRES!  With SEATS!  There was a sense of religion.  Being in the hallowed halls.  There’s no religion when you’re in a hockey arena.  And why do you have to stand?  How can you contemplate the music when your space is being invaded by somebody else’s sweat?  There’s no longer any respect.  For the audience OR the music.

3

When you’re falling awake and you take stock of the new day
And you hear your voice croak as you choke on what you need to say
Well, don’t you fret, don’t you fear
I will give you good cheer

Life’s a long song
Life’s a long song
Life’s a long song

Live shows have turned into spectacles.  It’s about the staging.  The pyrotechnics.  The Stones still make you wait for ninety minutes before they appear.  And then they bombard you.  They strive for the same effect as an atomic bomb.

Ian Anderson just walked to the edge of the stage with a miniature guitar and started playing this song.

"Life’s A Long Song" has a lyrical quality.  It takes you away, back into the day, of your past life.

Make no mistake.  Last night’s Jethro Tull performance was a nostalgia show.  This is not U2 or the Stones.  Trying on the patina of newness.  Trying to convince those in attendance that they still matter.  When really, they’re just there to take you back to who you once were.  They’re touchstones.  No more.  "A Bigger Bang" might be the best Stones album in decades, but it does not generate the lift, the elation, the THRILL of "Let It Bleed".  The first time you heard the intro to "Gimmie Shelter" you said OH WOW!  There are no "oh wow" moments on their new album.

And there’s nothing close to "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For" on "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb".  That’s what’s creepy about it.  The Stones and U2 are now part of the problem, when they used to be part of the solution.  They’re big marketers now.  Tying in with other industries.  Telling you you MUST be there, when if you’ve been there before there’s nothing new, and it creeps you out.

Last night was a camp reunion.  It was only for fans.  Ian Anderson was trying to reach no one new.  He wasn’t trying to IMPRESS the audience.  Rather, he wanted to entertain them.  To deliver something that would not only warm their hearts, but make them want to come again.

After "Life’s A Long Song" came "Skating Away".  This was magical for me, since I’d just heard the tune and written about it THE WEEK BEFORE!  That’s what the experience used to be.  It was an ongoing one.  All the pieces fit together.  It wasn’t them and us, it was we.

4

The highlight was "Mother Goose".

Ain’t that the way it always is.  The song you don’t need to hear, that wasn’t even in your brain, blows your mind.

This was not a Stones appearance.  Tull didn’t play what was expected of them.  Oh, there was a ton of "Aqualung", maybe since they were giving away a free live CD of the album, but the rest was an eclectic mix.

I thought I’d heard "Aqualung" enough to not need to hear it again.  But "Mother Goose" had the feel of a run through the English countryside.  As if you and your friends were flowing through the high grass, laughing at the top of your lungs, feeling that this is what life is about.

And since I didn’t expect to be dazzled by "Mother Goose", it WAS what life was about.  I’m on the edge of my seat, going back and forth.  I’ve merged with the music, we’re one.

And it’s a crack band.  Oh, there was a tiny tiny little bit on tape.  Like Ian saying "Mary" before "Cross-Eyed Mary" began.

But really, 99.999% was live.  It was like the seventies all over again.  A five piece replicating every note on the record.  With no mistakes.

Oh, for about a third there was another player, Lucia Micarelli.  A Julliard-trained violin player.

I figured she was the daughter of someone in the band.  That there was a connection somewhere.  But Ian told me after he just wanted to mix it up.  And it turns out she was also represented by William Morris.

And speaking with Brad Goodman, Ian’s agent, afterward, I learned of all kinds of endeavors Ian was involved in.  Playing with orchestras.  Chamber groups.  It appeared that Ian was what Bono and Mick Jagger are not.  A musician.  Someone who can’t do the same thing every night.  Who’s got to mix it up for himself.

5

Sitting there during the show, my mind drifting, the way it used to back in the day, it occurred to me that the business had changed irrevocably.  That the major label model was obsolete.

As Jake Gold says, the tour used to be the ad for the record, now the record is the ad for the tour.  And the tour implies belief.

There’s no belief in those chart-topping acts playing to half-full houses, at best.  Belief is a very personal thing.  A one on one bond between act and fan.  That’s what this business was built upon.  That’s what’s gone.

The major labels have abandoned this concept.  They think you can only be exposed to music the OLD-FASHIONED way.  Via authorized airplay.  But now there are a PLETHORA of venues.  You can be touched by an act on the Net, via MySpace, via an e-mailed MP3, you can learn about something from satellite radio, the emphasis has changed, it’s just about FINDING stuff, not buying a narrow band of hyped product.  And once you find something you love, you’re bonded to it.  The world is going to evolve into TRIBES!  Each following specific acts.  The money is going to be in the ACT, not the record, unlike today.  Think about it.  Today the acts come and go while the executives stay.  Whereas somebody like Ian Anderson has outlasted everybody from Chris Wright and Terry Ellis to Mike Bone to John Sykes to Daniel Glass.  He’s in control, not the label.  And he really only cares about his fans.  He knows it’s THEM that he’s got to please.

6

Ian didn’t play "Teacher".  Nothing off "Stand Up".

But something from "This Was".

The fact that he threw in a tune from his first album makes me want to go back.  Figuring he might play "To Cry You A Song" or "Teacher" next time around.

And that’s the way it used to be.

Hell, that’s why the PREVIOUS Stones tour was exciting.  When they played small halls like the Wiltern and pulled out the old chestnuts.

Then again, the Stones still want to make you believe they’re relevant.

Can I tell you two of the highlights last night were songs Ian Anderson had NOTHING TO DO WITH?

During one of Lucia’s featured numbers, it was unmistakable, the band began playing BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY!  It reminded me of seeing Elton John throw in "Jesus Christ Superstar" in the coda of "Burn Down The Mission" at Carnegie Hall back in ’71.

And then the whole band rallied to play KASHMIR!

I’d like to tell you it was cheesy.

But it wasn’t.

You see this is our music.  This is who we are.  Ian told me these songs weren’t his choice, they were Lucia’s.  But he went along.  To please her.  To please the audience.

And they were pleased.

"Mother Goose" wasn’t the only number that got a standing O.  The response to "Kashmir" was THUNDEROUS!

You see we still remember.  When our bands meant more to us than anything else.

As long as the major labels are in control, this can’t happen again.

Thank god they’re losing power.

How much does it cost to press a CD?  For a $75 ticket why SHOULDN’T Ian Anderson give away a live recording of "Aqualung"?  Why shouldn’t EVERY band give away music with its performance?

Then again, they don’t have to.  Their fans are downloading it P2P.  Live takes, alternate takes, as much as they can lay their hands on.

While major labels are putting up barriers, speed bumps, everything from DRM’ed AACs to copy-protected CDs, the people are just taking what they want.  They know it’s about MORE, not less.  Contrary to what the major label infrastructure says, this is GOOD for artists.  It bonds people to them.  And, for all you songwriters complaining, if P2P were authorized and charged for, you’d get paid too.  MORE, since more people would want and possess more music.

But really, the economics are secondary.

Remove the businessman middleman and all you’ve got is the artist and his fan.  Jethro Tull exists outside the system.  And that’s why the band can deliver so fully for its believers.

And I care not a whit whether you believe in Jethro Tull.  I don’t need to convince you.  I just hope you believe in SOMEBODY!  And that somebody throws off the trappings.  And plays in an intimate venue.  And is concerned with satisfying YOU, not the media, not some CASUAL fan.