The Trick Is To Keep Going

In 1969 and 1970 I saw Jethro Tull in concert three times. Looking back on the first show, the venue seems so unlikely given their later worldwide success. It was in a small club under a Pegnataro’s Supermarket just off the highway in downtown New Haven, Connecticut.

The place was called The Stone Balloon and was fashioned directly after the Cafe Au Go Go in New York. It was a long, narrow room with a low ceiling. Tables and chairs took up most of the audience area in front of a small stage on the right-hand side wall toward the front half of the room. Unlike the Au Go Go it was brightly lit between sets. The Au Go Go was always like a cave.

They served no alcoholic beverages, just fruit drinks, soda and snacks, again much like the Au Go Go. Still, this club had an amazing array of talent pass through it in what I believe was perhaps about a year of being in business. We saw John Hammond, Taj Mahal and his band with Jesse Ed Davis as well as Tull, and others such as Neil Young & Crazy Horse passed through.

It was February, 1969 and Jethro Tull had just released their first album in the States, This Was, and would soon start recording the classic Stand Up. This Was was admittedly not fully representative of the band, according to front man Ian Anderson. It was yet another blues-oriented take from a British band, and original guitarist Mick Abrahams had departed after that release, wanting to stay in the blues groove. Anderson and company wanted to break out of it. And they certainly did.

They were at the Balloon for four nights, the 20th-23rd, two shows a night. We went the last night, a Sunday, and although a touring site states only about 30 people showed up for each of these shows I believe that’s underestimating a bit. That may very well have been the case on the Thursday but by Sunday there were perhaps 100 people in the club. Still a relatively paltry crowd and it was quite easy to find a table close to the stage.

As mentioned above, the stage was tiny and perhaps for that reason, Anderson didn’t display a lot of the showmanship he became noted for through stage movement. Nonetheless he was charasmatic and new member Martin Barre filled the vacancy at guitar quite well, thank you. They used HiWatt amps, which looked like Marshalls, but I don’t recall them being overpowering for that room. It was very listenable. Of course, maybe my ears were more resilient then.

I don’t recall the entire set, but I do remember My Sunday Feeling, from the first album, was the opener, and A Song For Jeffrey and Beggar’s Farm were in the set along with drummer Clive Thacker’s brilliant drum showcase, Dharma For One, toward the end of the show.

Two songs that made the biggest impression though were, Anderson said, coming up on the next album, Back To The Family and For A Thousand Mothers. I loved the contrast between the verse and chorus of  Family and the furious, driving rhythm in 6 of Mothers was not only interesting it was a step forward in the rock genre.

I wouldn’t see Tull again for more than a year, and what a difference it was. Stand Up was released in September, 1969, and had made a much bigger impact than This Was. It charted in the top 20 in the U.S. and was No. 1 in the U.K. By early 1970, when Tull had arrived in Hartford at the Bushnell Auditorium on May 20th, a Wednesday, they were quickly becoming one of the biggest rock acts around and their stage show, mainly Anderson, was now fully developed.

My girlfriend, Archer Rowbottom, and I had seats about 20 rows back on the floor of the middle section of the ornate theater. John Sebastian opened the show. There was another band Clouds but I remember little of them. Sebastian was very good and very funny in his tie-dyed outfit, looking like he just walked off the stage at Woodstock. He kept calling his portion of the show a Cheapo-Cheapo production because it consisted of just him and his acoustic guitar with a tiny amplifier in back of him. A memorable and very humorous performance.

Tull’s was also memorable. It made a huge impression on me in terms of stage presence. Anderson simply blew me away with the way he commanded the stage and the crowd. His movements were unique, his dress now with long coat and knee-high boots iconic, and the image of his flowing wild, long hair and beard and standing on one leg while playing the flute with a breathy technique was indelible. John Evan, dressed in a milk man’s outfit, had been added on keyboards, giving the band a fuller sound.

Most of the material was from Stand Up and a few from Benefit, which we were already familiar with since it came out in April, but there was one big suprise. They opened with Nothing Is Easy and included New Day Yesterday, Bouree, Dharma For One, For A Thousand Mothers, My Sunday Feeling, an acoustic segment with Fat Man, and from Benefit an overpowering version of To Cry You A Song and With You There To Help Me.

The surprise was My God, which Anderson said would be the title track from their forthcoming album. Of course, it didn’t happen that way. Tull historians may know the complete story, but it would seem that the appearance of a boot in local record shops, complete with a white, non-discript album cover a few months later thwarted this. The tune, a long and impressive composition employing a mix of Tull’s influences in their new musical direction, had been lifted straight out of the studio. In the end, My God did appear on the somewhat delayed next album a year later, but Aqualung was the title track.

I guess Anderson and Tull had the last laugh there.

Jethro Tull was so good in Hartford, I did something I rarely do. I had to see them again, so Archer and I settled for terrible seats in the balcony that Saturday night at the Fillmore East, the last of a three-night stand. The impact wasn’t as great sitting so far away but it quenched my thirst for more of Anderson’s stunning stage show.

Some tour itineraries on the web list Clouds and Sebastian as the supporting acts but that wasn’t the case. Fat Mattress, with Noel Redding from the Jimi Hendrix Experience on guitar, were the opener. Sadly, they were a bit disappointing. The crowd then went wild for Grand Funk Railroad, just beginning their surge to stardom. Again, Grand Funk never really hit a chord with me. I suppose because I had been influenced greatly by Cream, Paul Butterfield and later Hendrix and to me Grand Funk fell short of being in the same league.

At any rate, Jethro Tull performed a very similar set and show to the one in Hartford and even from the cheap seats put on a staggering performance. I wouldn’t see them again until nearly 40 years later despite liking a lot of what they had been doing in the meantime. When I did catch them at the Oakdale in Wallingford, Connecticut in 2001, they were still very much on top of their game.