Pop Music Reviews : No Frills or Fat From Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull’s concert at the Wiltern Theatre on Thursday provided answers to a couple of questions that casual fans might have had about the group’s leader, Ian Anderson: Yes, he’s still fairly trim, but no, he’s not quite as nimble as he used to be and he’s definitely not the madcap showman he once was. But who would expect him to be? He’s been at this for quite some time.

What the show did, though, was present Tull’s music as surprisingly trim and nimble. Known as part of the bloated ‘70s prog-rock movement, Tull gave its rock songs jazz, light-classical and Old English folk slants. In this show, though, Anderson and his latest crew stripped away the frills and fat for a scaled-down show more or less in the currently fashionable “unplugged” mode.

In truth, Tull was never as pretentious as Yes or Emerson, Lake and Palmer or others of the arty ilk, largely because Anderson gave the sense that he didn’t take it all too seriously. There was a satiric edge to both his music and his on-stage antics--particularly those grand-ballet leaps.

With the show split into an acoustic half and a second, more rock-oriented part, the band--now featuring two musicians who have also done double-duty with veteran English folk-rock band Fairport Convention--played its oldies vigorously, flashing its considerable musical talent, making those stripped-down songs sound quite fresh.