Ian Anderson/Orchestral Jethro Tull, July 2006

8/1/06: Alas, there's an erratum here: "Immigrant Song" was actually "Kashmir." And I feel really bad for not catching it.




This one has a backstory, which I'll get to after the review.

Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson Indulges His Inner Child at Wolf Trap

Washington Post, Friday, July 28, 2006; Page C02

Wednesday's show at Wolf Trap, "Ian Anderson Plays the Orchestral Jethro Tull," might have been subtitled "The Juvenile Person's Guide to the Orchestra," as Anderson chatted, mugged and naughtied his way through his repertoire and beyond. Among myriad examples: He noted that Jean Sibelius wrote one of his concertos "in the lavvy-loo," then reenacted the event, with sound effects.

Maybe you have to be a windbag to be that kind of flutist, for the jolly geezer was as inventive a blower as ever, careening across the stage in a frenzy of vocals, flute and leg twitches when, for example, his version of Bach's "Bouree" called for it. At 58, his voice has worn as thin as his prog-rock genre, but he compensated with enthusiasm for the nexus of tunes and tempos, performer and audience. A crowd-teasing "Aqualung" opened with the string section's flourish of six familiar notes, then swaggered through cocktail jazz and spaghetti western long before the title character raised his phlegmy head. A Mozart medley suggested the reinvention of Wolfie's oeuvre by a musically gifted cargo cult. And if some numbers wore out their welcome, the fey charms of "Mother Goose" could have gone on all night.

"Locomotive Breath" came as a breath of pure rhythmic relief, as did an impassioned re-imagining of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" led by guest violinist Lucia Micarelli. Barefoot, bare-shouldered and all of 23, she was the howling, earth-shaking mistress of "Immigrant Song." Anderson could only hang on for the ride. And he seemed to relish every minute of it.

-- Pamela Murray Winters

I could have gone on and on about this show. And I did, in my original review, which was too long for the Post. Whoever edited it did a good job of trimming and tightening. I didn't get to see any changes before publication.

The last paragraph, as I wrote it, read as follows:

“Locomotive Breath” came as a breath of pure rhythmic relief, as did an impassioned reimagining of Led Zeppelin's “Immigrant Song” led by guest violinist Lucia Micarelli. Barefoot, bare-shouldered and all of 23, she was fodder for Anderson's bad intents: He quipped that local Tull fan Tony Snow wished he were onstage, but “unless you've got [mammaries] like these, you've got no chance.” But for all his phallic fluteplay, Micarelli was the howling, earth-shaking mistress of “Immigrant Song”; he could only just hang on for the ride. And he seemed to relish every minute of it.


For "[mammaries]," a bracketed bowdlerization I included because the Post wouldn't have printed the original, read "tits."

In Anderson's defense, it seems like the word is more shocking on this side of the Atlantic than on his own. But I've got scant else to offer in his defense. I was taken aback.

An editor friend and I had a fascinating phone discussion in which we dissected the various levels of potential offensiveness of this instance: whether it mattered, for example, that Micarelli had toured with him for several shows and wasn't a one-night guest, or that the crowd was made up of Tull fans, who gave Anderson a warm reception, rather than no-applause-just-rattle-your-jewelry subscriber types.

Whatever. Not my place to say much more other than that the show rocked.