Jethro Tull: Aqualung Live Remaster

Oh, I have surely always loved me some Jethro Tull.

The remaster of the band’s 2005 Aqualung Live, with the line-up of players Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, Doane Perry, Andrew Giddings & Jonathan Noyce, make this mini concert, recorded in 2004 at Sirius XM’s studio in Washington DC, a special treat. (For me, there is no Tull without Martin Barre, and I so dig drummer Doane Perry, and keyboardist Andrew Giddings.)

Still making albums, singing, flute playing and touring with a newer version of what is surely his band, though diagnosed with COPD, Anderson keeps chugging on. But it was around the beginning of the new century, the last time I saw Jethro Tull live, when it became noticeable that Ian Anderson was losing his voice. Here we surely hear the slow decline of his vocal powers, most notably on the heavier tunes like the opener title track and “Locomotive Breath.” Luckily, for me personally, it is the quieter acoustic tunes I have always loved best from this 1971 album and on these Anderson is up for the task.

As is the band.

‘Album cuts’ like “Cheap Day Return,” “Mother Goose” and “Wond’ring Aloud,” this last with some beautiful Andrew Giddings playing and one of my all-time favorite lyrics, ‘And it’s only the giving that makes you what you are,’ really shine. These are songs I have never heard Jethro Tull perform live and I have seen the band plenty since 1978.

But that’s what you get when a band runs through a full album, as well as the treat of the song order as it was first presented, something, that in many cases, is very important indeed.

There is an interesting acoustic start to “Hymn 43” and then the killer ender “Wind-Up,” again, featuring some great ivory tickling from Giddings.

This new Aqualung Live Remaster is a nice document to have from well back when Tull were still the Tull I loved.