A few cool surprises were also trotted out this night, including the hard rocking "Hunting Girl," from 1977's Songs From The Wood, a mesmerizing percussion fueled "Fat Man," which saw Barre capably handling the flute duties while Anderson played mandolin, as well as newer material such as "Dot Com" from 1999's J-Tull Dot Com and "Beside Myself" from 1995's Roots To Branches.
By the second half of the set, they had dispensed of most of the acoustic and Christmassy stuff (it was July after all) and proceeded to tear through a smoldering run of songs that could have each been chosen as concert highlights. "Living In The Past" and "Nothing Is Easy" finds Barre’s playing as heavy and energized as I've ever heard it.
The Aqualung classic "My God" certainly proved that Anderson is one of the greatest rock flutists in the world. Wait a minute. Isn't he the ONLY rock flutiest in the world? What I'm trying to say is that he had me shaking my head in amazement with his performance on this one.
It was also great to hear "Budapest" again. This Crest Of A Knave gem has certainly been a band favorite to perform and has slowly turned into a fan favorite as well. It reminds me a lot of Dire Strait's "Telegraph Road" in the way that the piano and guitar work together to build from haunting ballad to epic rocker. After closing out the main set with a better-than-ever "Aqualung," the band came back and topped it with an incredible encore performance of "Locomotive Breathe."
As "Cheerio" played over the public address system the band bid farewell to the appreciative Montreux crowd as Anderson launched a couple of giant white balloons, each adorned with the Tull logo, out into the crowd.It gets easier to critique the set list of a band who has so many albums and great songs to choose from as Jethro Tull does. Just look at my latest Rush concert review to get a glimpse of that in action.
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