Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2014 7:15:06 GMT
I've told this story elsewhere a while back and just saw a similar question asked out on FB so I thought I'd tell it again and see if anyone else had a good one.
In 1971 there was just a buzz in the air about Tull, I'd picked up Stand-up a year before and enjoyed it, but I'd never seen them. You'd over hear various conversations at school about Tull live being very impressive. I was 15 and had been going to concerts for about a year but I have to say that going to festival seating concerts was a bit of a social affair and I just wasn't completely absorbed by the music just yet. We, my friends and I, were more interested in the fact that you could go to a concert and get as high as you wanted and no one bothered you, and it seemed a thousand or so others around you were doing the same. Fun.
So the end of the school year came around and some of my friends got us all tickets to see Tull, telling me I "really needed to see this". A couple of them had been the year before and were not going to miss this, great, sure I'll go why not?
Aqualung had come out and was all over the radio so I picked up the album, loved the title track, and had given it a few listens but I couldn't name any of the other songs. But hey how many concerts have you gone to see and really known the material?
So school was out! And we laid in our concert "supplies" and the day came. My friend Allen and I didn't have a car so we hitchhiked maybe 20 miles down a boulevard that ran through some pretty nasty parts of town (south central LA) to the Forum. Something I wouldn't even think of doing now. I look back on it we were complete fools but we didn't give it a thought. We arrived early and checked out the whole place roamed around the upper tiers of seats watching things get set up. The Forum is HUGE. After a while our friends arrived along with 19,000 others. Music started lights went down and the clouds of smoke began to form. We found our seats down low and fairly close but went looking for others around in other sections, seems half of my high school was there and we were having a blast, again the social thing was going full strength.
AT THIS POINT YOU SHOULD SCOLL DOWN AND HIT PLAY (this is a multi media event) NOW CONTINUE READING.
The opening act was winding down and was very mellow actually we took our seats and I was sitting next to my pal Ed, who'd been to Tull before. So he was my guide from there on. I hadn't even noticed that one act had ended and another had mounted the stage, I got an elbow in the ribs from Ed saying forcefully, "you'll want to watch this".
Up on the stage, a small blue light from above shown down on a guy with a seeming mountain of hair, sitting on a stool strumming an acoustic guitar. The rest of the stage was dark. It was a cool soft song that I recognized from the album. Apparently the record had not prepared me properly for what was about to happen. I also did not remember that the name of the song was My God.
at a certain point the whole place exploded in my face in oranges and yellows and wow! the sound!!! Kaboom.!!!
There was an ad for Marantz or Pioneer Stereo years later that showed a guy sitting in front of his speakers and his hair is blowing back. A little like the films of the effects of a nucleur blast, That and my mouth hanging open was me.
The bass player and guitar player had jumped forward with the lights while the guy with all the hair shot up off his stool and kicked it over like Errol Flynn in full swing.
i was riveted. All thoughts of moving from my seat to roam around seeing friends were earased. Especially when the guy picks up his flute and wields it like a sword, but then began to play. Wow. The bass player was bouncing back and forth, backward and forward and the guitarist! I distinctly remember him looking like a shy kind of guy, head down and foot clumsily tapping "not in time" with the music but making a buzz saw of a sound. And this was loud. The juxtaposition (I didn't know that word back then) of the blazing electric guitar and the flute was very very interesting. It was like being exposed to a modern day pan. I was slack jawed. My friend Ed was smiling ear to ear, alike "see, I told you". And then there was that flute solo.....! I was close enough to see Ian's facial expressions and you just couldn't tell what was going on with the guy, he seemed to be having an argument with the flute and the mic...and then he'd start laughing through his flute. Now that was the first song...
throughout the night it seemed every time the band had reached a high point they out did them selves just minutes later. Ian was so much more than any description I'd herd before hand. He was a tireless wild man on stage. Needless to say I was altered for it seems the rest of my life! I remember most of this night like it was .....5 years ago or maybe 10. ;-)
So you might imagine, with this memory in my head, going to see the 40th anniversary of the Aqualung album in 2011, the last time I saw "Tull" was a bit of a different experience. Ian and Martin were still there.....
There was a special line at the bar for people using walkers and riding in "easychairs"........
so I know this is long and mostly boring but it's MY story.....Tell us yours!!!
Darin Cody
PS I have a recording of that night, and will post it but this is the closest thing I can put up here now. I've seen The Isle Of Wight version of My God but it is before they developed the big "boom" trick with the lights and such. Not quite the same effect. (Always great to see though)
In 1971 there was just a buzz in the air about Tull, I'd picked up Stand-up a year before and enjoyed it, but I'd never seen them. You'd over hear various conversations at school about Tull live being very impressive. I was 15 and had been going to concerts for about a year but I have to say that going to festival seating concerts was a bit of a social affair and I just wasn't completely absorbed by the music just yet. We, my friends and I, were more interested in the fact that you could go to a concert and get as high as you wanted and no one bothered you, and it seemed a thousand or so others around you were doing the same. Fun.
So the end of the school year came around and some of my friends got us all tickets to see Tull, telling me I "really needed to see this". A couple of them had been the year before and were not going to miss this, great, sure I'll go why not?
Aqualung had come out and was all over the radio so I picked up the album, loved the title track, and had given it a few listens but I couldn't name any of the other songs. But hey how many concerts have you gone to see and really known the material?
So school was out! And we laid in our concert "supplies" and the day came. My friend Allen and I didn't have a car so we hitchhiked maybe 20 miles down a boulevard that ran through some pretty nasty parts of town (south central LA) to the Forum. Something I wouldn't even think of doing now. I look back on it we were complete fools but we didn't give it a thought. We arrived early and checked out the whole place roamed around the upper tiers of seats watching things get set up. The Forum is HUGE. After a while our friends arrived along with 19,000 others. Music started lights went down and the clouds of smoke began to form. We found our seats down low and fairly close but went looking for others around in other sections, seems half of my high school was there and we were having a blast, again the social thing was going full strength.
AT THIS POINT YOU SHOULD SCOLL DOWN AND HIT PLAY (this is a multi media event) NOW CONTINUE READING.
The opening act was winding down and was very mellow actually we took our seats and I was sitting next to my pal Ed, who'd been to Tull before. So he was my guide from there on. I hadn't even noticed that one act had ended and another had mounted the stage, I got an elbow in the ribs from Ed saying forcefully, "you'll want to watch this".
Up on the stage, a small blue light from above shown down on a guy with a seeming mountain of hair, sitting on a stool strumming an acoustic guitar. The rest of the stage was dark. It was a cool soft song that I recognized from the album. Apparently the record had not prepared me properly for what was about to happen. I also did not remember that the name of the song was My God.
at a certain point the whole place exploded in my face in oranges and yellows and wow! the sound!!! Kaboom.!!!
There was an ad for Marantz or Pioneer Stereo years later that showed a guy sitting in front of his speakers and his hair is blowing back. A little like the films of the effects of a nucleur blast, That and my mouth hanging open was me.
The bass player and guitar player had jumped forward with the lights while the guy with all the hair shot up off his stool and kicked it over like Errol Flynn in full swing.
i was riveted. All thoughts of moving from my seat to roam around seeing friends were earased. Especially when the guy picks up his flute and wields it like a sword, but then began to play. Wow. The bass player was bouncing back and forth, backward and forward and the guitarist! I distinctly remember him looking like a shy kind of guy, head down and foot clumsily tapping "not in time" with the music but making a buzz saw of a sound. And this was loud. The juxtaposition (I didn't know that word back then) of the blazing electric guitar and the flute was very very interesting. It was like being exposed to a modern day pan. I was slack jawed. My friend Ed was smiling ear to ear, alike "see, I told you". And then there was that flute solo.....! I was close enough to see Ian's facial expressions and you just couldn't tell what was going on with the guy, he seemed to be having an argument with the flute and the mic...and then he'd start laughing through his flute. Now that was the first song...
throughout the night it seemed every time the band had reached a high point they out did them selves just minutes later. Ian was so much more than any description I'd herd before hand. He was a tireless wild man on stage. Needless to say I was altered for it seems the rest of my life! I remember most of this night like it was .....5 years ago or maybe 10. ;-)
So you might imagine, with this memory in my head, going to see the 40th anniversary of the Aqualung album in 2011, the last time I saw "Tull" was a bit of a different experience. Ian and Martin were still there.....
There was a special line at the bar for people using walkers and riding in "easychairs"........
so I know this is long and mostly boring but it's MY story.....Tell us yours!!!
Darin Cody
PS I have a recording of that night, and will post it but this is the closest thing I can put up here now. I've seen The Isle Of Wight version of My God but it is before they developed the big "boom" trick with the lights and such. Not quite the same effect. (Always great to see though)