Rock As Electric Wallpaper

Ian Anderson comes on by himself, hair rattier and more tangled than ever, his permanent costume of leather boots, pocketless pants and black and yellow checked coat showing rents and signs of wear, waving an acoustic guitar in acknowlegement to the standing ovation.

“Good eveningj ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Welcome to the Andy Williams Show.”

He sits down and quietly starts into “My God”. John Evan moves silently to his Steinway and starts playing, complementing the sound without adding volume. Silently, the rest of the band walk on, plug in, and let forth with a crashing roar. Anderson kicks his chair away, and starts bounding around while new bassist Jeff r e y Hammond-Hammond, subject of several Tull songs (all written by Ian Anderson, before Jeffrey joined, one presumes) takes great swooping steps, his glasses looking like a fighter pilot’s goggles. Through it all the rock bellows and screams: Jethro Tull’s speciality.

British hard rock has become synonomous with Led Zeppelin, Of course, but whereas the Zep’s heaviness is derived from blues, Tull’s weight is an outgrowth of rock and roll.

For a group' so loud, they’re remarkably tight. Anderson, Leonard Bernstein on speed, flails Ihist arms with no apparent reason, but they’re in perfect time with the music, and are usually anticipating the next change. The others are also quite visually exuberant, John Evans looning about almost as much as Anderson; at one point, he climbs on his piano, to no particular end. All the while the rock thunders. Within twenty minutes they have broken all the monitor speakers and a piano string.

As a band, they’re fine entertainers; as soloists, they bore. Anderson fills his solo with shrieking, negating almost everything tliat had gone before. At one point hfe breaks into “Bouree” just long enough for the crowd to applaud in recognition and then away — more mind games. John Evans spends his time with classical rip offs, and Martin Barre goes on for so long that the audience gets frustrated, calling out “Get on with it!” and other barbs. Only new drummer, Barrie Barlow, provides any interest, creating rhythms and textures which compare favorably to the Grateful Dead’s dual drumming.

Live rock as theatre has been standard since Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard first attacked a piano, but no-one has carried it as far as Anderson without resorting to props (a la Bonzo Dog Band and Alice Cooper). Many of his actions are1 contrived, playing on one foot, and hitting himself on the head to end a riff, for example, but the way he* crouches back, arm swirling and flying into the air, and then surges up to the mike stand has a vitality and excitement missing from nearly all current groups. His ohe failing is his vulgariry. He frequently grabs his crotch to emphasize certain flute runs, throws in bumps and grinds and pseudo-strip teases at random and displays unmatched vocal crudity. (Jeffrey was introduced as having just been released from prison after'being convicted for “exposing-himself outside the ladies’ toilets in Piccadily Circus.” Anderson then went on to explain that Jeffrey had turned over a new leaf, and now concentrated on cocker spaniels, giving a thrust with his finger to drive his point home.)

Crass sexuality was glutted by Morrison (sometimes both Jim and Van) and Hendrix, and to see it today is almost irrelevant.

Be that as it may, Anderson’s vulgarity is part of his Fagin act: his costume, his actions, his | choice of words all belie an infatuation with Dickens’ Jew. His language also betrays his education, thus Anderson the intellectual plays Anderson the seedy.

But while Anderson is raving about and the rock clangs on the crowd is engaged in entirely different activities. The average age is somewhere between 16 and 22 (those over that age are home listening to Randy Newman, John Lennon and other cult tastes) and while the band is the reason they have come together, they’re also there for the communion it affords. And to that aspect Jethro Tull takes second place.

There is constantly' a high buzz of people talking, even when Anderson is talking at length about the poverty of his home town. A member of the audience even keeps blowing a horn during songs until Anderson threatens to “Break his fucking neck.”

Encoring with “Wind Up,” he has to call out three times that the beginning was quiet and would people shut up. They never do, entirely. As the last strains of the song sound in the hall, the band walks off and it is just Ian and his guitar again. He stops, says goodnight and walks pff.

Fifteen minutes later, the eighteen thousand strong crowd, full of “right on” and “brother”, is still stomping and screaming for a second encore, getting a rush off the sheer volume of sound they could create. Rock has become electric wallpaper.