Also making appearances on the video screen are some former members and longstanding fans, including Jeffrey Hammond and Tony Iommi, introducing some of the songs. The evening itself straddles old and new video projections behind the band often show video of a younger and hairier band performing the same song – sometimes surreally with the current Anderson singing in apparently perfect time with the younger version behind, for example, as they perform hit single, Living in the Past. The music of Jethro Tull defies classification with songs presented tonight varying from the jazzy to country-inspired, from driving rock to the more pastoral and folky.
Not that this fine distinction matters to the sellout Symphony Hall audience, an audience that shows a healthy variation of age and gender, all of whom seem intent on enjoying hearing the music of Tull performed by its iconic front-man and principal songwriter, Ian Anderson. Despite this concert’s title, this evening is credited to Ian Anderson and the Tull Band, so it’s not totally clear whether we are seeing Jethro Tull or not.
In 2012, Barre announced that the group had ended and since then both Anderson and Barre have toured with their own bands, perhaps most memorably when Anderson reworked some Tull classics to tell the story of the agriculturist, Tull, in a multimedia rock opera that toured in 2015. In the years since, the membership has regularly changed, as has the band’s emphasis and musical direction, the two consistent members being singer and flautist Ian Anderson and guitarist Martin Barre. And it’s the anniversary of this event that tonight’s concert seeks to celebrate. This name stuck and it was under it that they released their first album, This Was, in 1968. They subsequently moved to London, where they never got repeat bookings so went through several name changes eventually, their agent named them Jethro Tull after the 18 thcentury inventor of the seed drill. A group of Blackpool musicians, including Ian Anderson, Jeffrey Hammond and John Evan, was playing locally in the mid-1960s. It’s not entirely obvious now exactly when Jethro Tull was formed.
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