JETHRO TULL – Living With The Past

The year 2002 brought a new record deal (at least in Europe) for British rock legends Jethro Tull. They signed for fellow British based Eagle Rock and celebrating this event they quickly came out with the band’s brand new live album “Living With The Past”, which serves as kind of a best of compilation of live tracks from different shows and eras of the band. And since Eagle has a division that deals with motion pictures it seemed to be the right time to put out the very first DVD release of the band.

The production of the DVD was mainly done by Classic Rock Productions who are well known for their high quality DVD releases (Mostly Autumn, Uriah Heep, Fairport Convention a.o.). And this one is no exception. After listening to the 75 minutes long live CD I knew that it was going to be something special, but I never imagined such a wonderful outcome. I mean this DVD release has everything that you could ever dream about – especially if you’re a Tull fan. First of all there are almost two hours of magical Tull music with performances from various shows. The biggest part of the live stuff was recorded at London’s Hammersmith Apollo Theatre on November 25th 2001, but the other gigs (Bristol, Reading, Chicago, etc.) were also filmed recently, so they feature the current line-up of the band. As icing on the cake here you can witness the reunion of the original 1968 Tull line-up performing Someday The Sun Won’t Shine For You, A Song For Jeffrey and My Sunday Feeling. The four guys of Mick Abrahams, Glenn Cornick, Clive Bunker and mastermind Ian Anderson rejoined forces in a small pub in the middle of nowhere in England trying to recreate the atmosphere of the early days. Great stuff. Another surprise on the DVD is the inclusion of a string quartet on two beautiful pieces (Wond’ring Aloud, Life Is A Long Song) putting Jethro Tull’s music into a new dimension.

In between the songs the band members are talking about a lot of interesting things, remembering the past of this great band. Also comments from Tull fans and other documentary and backstage footage included during those short breaks.

A lot of cameras were used in recording the shows and here comes what I really like about this DVD. The production team that shot this film paid a big attention to their job as they recorded many alternate scenes that they could use in the end. Most of the concert videos just show the same stuff during a two hour set and that usually gets really boring even if the music is good, but that’s not the case with this film. It never stops for a moment. They were using a lot of cameras, colour filters, scenes and also had a great lightning on stage, which is always part of a Tull show and creates a great atmosphere. But of course all these things wouldn’t be enough without a great band on stage. And Jethro Tull is a band of real entertainment with Ian Anderson having a really good time on stage. Besides playing the flute, the acoustic guitar and singing with no mistakes he always finds the time to make the crowd smiling. One time he brought out his camera making photographs of the other members and the audience. He enjoyed every single minute of the entire show from beginning to end. The band played all the big fans favourites like Jack In The Green, Thick As A Brick, Cross Eyed Mary, Living In The Past and of course there’s no Tull gig without Aqualung and Locomotive Breath. But the best moment of the 2 hours for me was Budapest (maybe because I’m a Hungarian?) which is a hell of a great song.

The DVD is full of extras: Tull talk, photo gallery, Ian Anderson talks about the DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) disease, also him in collaboration with Uriah Heep and Fairport Convention (shame that these are no longer than 2 minutes each). One of the most interesting bonus features is a short clip of Beside Myself that you can enjoy from three different camera angles.
So, briefly that’s what I wanted to say about this wonderful release. I’ve seen quite so many DVDs lately, but this one is the best by miles ahead of all the others.