I saw Jethro Tulls 50th Anniversary Concert Last Night

Last night my son and I went to see Jethro Tull at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut. My son had received 2 comped seats. The concert was two hours with a 15 minute intermission at the one hour mark. I was surprised the concert had sold out. The sound was absolutely God awful. The music overpowered Ian Anderson’s vocals (which could be a good thing) and kind of spoiled things.

The concert started off off with music from their first record, “This Was” and the band went through the years highlighting a song from each record. There was a lot of video going on in the background (idea stolen from Pink Floyd?) showing old concert footage of the bands glory days. Ian’s voice has failed badly and is likely due to smoking cigarettes throughout his life. The songs were all dialed down so Ian could hit some of the notes. On the parts he couldn’t sing, they used footage from old concerts to fill in.

Although Ians voice wasn’t that good, his flute playing was exemplary. For a 72 year old man to have so much energy the way he was running around the stage was inspiring. I have always been a Tull fan which is also why my son is. This was the 32nd time I have seen them perform, but my first Tull concert since the early 90’s. In all honesty, it was painful to hear Ian sing and I think he should contemplate retirement.

I also have a lot of animosity towards Ian after supposedly retiring the Tull name in 2011 and firing Martin Barre who was his lead guitarist for 42 years and the drummer who was in the band for over 30 years. Ian never told them that he had already written “Thick As A Brick 2” and a year later, went out on his own with a bunch of session musicians to perform it under the Jethro Tull name and continues to do it to this day. Ian Anderson screwed his 2 loyal band mates out of a lot of money since 2011. I didn’t know this until I read up on it after the concert last night. This was the last time I will see Tull due to the way he repaid his lead guitarist and drummer. I never knew that Ian (who in my younger years, I worshipped him like a God) was such a jerk.