Post by Nonfatman on Nov 13, 2010 12:56:47 GMT -5
What are your own personal 'Top Ten Tull Moments' and why? I am not looking for a greatest Tull concerts list here, rather I would like to read about fond and/or funny memories that people have that are associated with Jethro Tull, told in a colorful, and maybe even stream of consciousness, way. (Am I asking too much?)
It could be something someone said, something you did, something that happened, or an experience that you had involving a Tull concert rather than Tull's performance at said concert. But it is not limited to concerts, it could be anything related to Tull.
Here are mine:
10) Meeting Dan last year in Schenectady before and after one of Ian's shows. Rob (a/k/a mothermonkey1) and I took one of our many Tull road trips and we had planned in advance to meet Dan before the show, which we did, quickly discovering that he was quite an agreeable and jovial fellow! Our initial impression was reinforced after the show when we pounded numerous beers with him and others until the 4:00 a.m. last call at the local dive bar near the venue. As the beers flowed, we had progressively lively and fun conversations and were entertained by a crazy, shit-faced chick, Raquel. She had a thing for Dan, and he was having a lot of fun toying with her!
9) The Biltmore Hotel Bar in Providence, RI, after opening night of the U.S. Catfish Rising Tour in 1991 was a memorable night, one where numerous and lasting friendships were made among Tull fans, and band members were hanging by the bar chatting with fans, with Peggy doing a lot of the buying as I recall. I caught a glimpse of Ian entering, but he was quickly ushered to a private area of the restaurant, so we did not get to meet him. This is when I met Rob, Ken Greene, Beverely, Lee and others for the first time, and the seeds of the first USA convention -- held six or seven months later in Newport -- were sewn. That was a great night!
8) Little Milton's Birthday Bash, held around June or July of 1992, I think, only a couple of months after the Providence convention. This was the best Tull party I ever attended. I went with Mike (icecreamman) and his new Russian girlfriend, Vicky, whom he later married, and I was with a hot little Chinese girl I was seeing at the time. Proceedings were conducted at a rented out, run-down funky little townhouse in Alphabet City in the East Village, at a pre-gentrified time when Alphabet City was still a threatening and kind of dangerous place, unlike now. Jerry Adessa organized and Dennis Landau helped out, shlepping a lot of stuff into the place to get things ready. There were huge deli sandwiches, with all the trimmings, plus ample quantities of beer, and marijuana could be smoked openly right outside on the stoop, because the cops simply didn't care back then. Entertainment was provided by Dennis and Benjamin, who warmed up the crowd, followed by Tull cover bands, Jethro Toe (whatever became of them?) and Heresy, who were around for a long time and was one of the best. I still have the tee-shirt from that party. What a blast that was!
7) Seeing Tull at the Erie County Fair in 2000 - I got married in July 2000, and went on a honeymoon right afterward, that caused me to miss Tull's NYC show at the Beacon Theater that year. Needless to say, I was not happy. So, when we returned from Italy, we took a second honeymoon a week later, to Buffalo, to coincide with the Tull show at the Erie County Fair. It was perfect because my wife had never been to Buffalo or Niagara Falls, and that is such a honeymoon thing to do, and since I went to law school in the area, I knew all the right places to take her, including JJ's House of Breakfast, "Home of the 99 cent Breakfast" when I was there in the mid-eighties, and when we returned it was still the home of the 99 cent breakfast! The propietors were two Indian brothers, Jay and Juged who still remembered me after so many years, which goes to show how many 99 cent breakfasts I had there! Anyway, on the day of the show we spent the day going on rides and the evening listening to the Young Dubliners and then, in a smoking set, Jethro Tull!
6) The release of Broadsword and the Beast was a very exciting one, and despite my well-known criticisms of that album, which I now consider Tull's worst, I was happy as a pig in shit. I just happened to be at the Brandeis Univ. radio station the day an advance copy came into the station, because I knew some of the DJs and I would often go there and hang out. As soon as I saw it, I called one of my best college friends, Fred, who over the previous two years, I had succeeded in converting into a Tull freak, to the point where it was scary, because he learned every word to every song and was more into it than even I was! However, Fred was not there so I was unable to talk to him, and there were no answering machines or cellphones back then. It was snowing rather furiously, and although I didn't know it at the time, Fred was trudging through the snow from clear across the other side of the campus, where his dorm was.....but he was unaware of the new Tull release, so he was just coming for a visit. I found out later that he nearly turned back several times because of the snow, but something drove him on, some intangible feeling that he had to come visit me! Anyway, when he arrived to my dorm he quickly learned of my whereabouts and came to the radio station -- where we listened to and dissected Broadsword all night, so that we can review it for The Justice (campus weekly), which we did. I can still remember the look on Fred's face when he entered the radio station and I, without saying a word, shoved the brand new album in front of him. His jaw literally dropped open!
5) Meeting Ian with Rob after a Washington DC show in April 2002 - I had not been on a Tull trip in several years, so I decided to build a mini-road trip around a business meeting that my wife had to attend in Baltimore right smack in between the Phildadephia show (opening night of that tour) and the two D.C. shows. So, this was a road trip with my wife, not Rob, but I learned when we got to D.C. that Rob was on his own solo road trip! To backtrack, though, first Karen and I went to see Tull at Philly, then we spent a night or two at Cape May, off-season, then we went to her Baltimore conference and the two D.C. shows, where we met up with Rob. The order of that is perhaps somewhat mixed up, but it was something like that. At the first D.C. show, the late Tony Snow came in with his wife and two daughters to see the show, and they sat in the row directly in front of us. That night, after the show, we were hanging out a nearby bar where we knew the Tull boys would be going after the show, and my wife was elated to meet and speak with Martin, Andy and Jonathan Noyce! I've got great pictures of her with those guys, and she's smiling from ear to ear. The next night, after the second D.C. show, we hung around the venue afterward, and talked for some time with Willy Porter, before Ian and Shona walked by! Rob and I went up to him, because Rob wanted to tell Ian his 9/11 story (Rob is a 9/11 survivor who barely escaped the carnage eight months earlier, by running all the way down Broadway to the southern tip of Manhattan, with the refrain "no way to slow down" running through his head the entire time.) I stood there, not saying much of anything, just listening to Rob talk about his experience, and watching Ian and Shona listening to Rob, intently and with growing fascination, and asking many questions to Rob. Amazing.
4) My first two Tull shows, SFTW and HH It was maybe three years after I discovered Tull before I saw them for the first time at MSG in 1977, and the second time the year later for the Bursting Out tour. I was 16 and 17, respectively, in the early days of my concert-going history, maybe I had seen four or five other shows before that, Jefferson Starship, Frampton, Styx and Aerosmith, but from the minute I got onto that train at the Stony Brook station, I knew Tull was going to be something special. For both of those shows, the Long Island Railroad train cars were filled with older, college age kids, drinking and smoking with impunity, and the way they were talking about Jethro Tull in such a cool and intellectual way, about the lyrics, about the show, about it all, was what impressed me the most. And then, for SFTW, getting to MSG, the place was sold out, there were these two guys dressed up as Ian in the riding tights and boots, with the red bowler hats, parading around the mezzanine, holding up both ends of a banner, which read, in Gothic print "Ian Anderson is My God", the experience of all that, the giant cloud of pot smoke, etc., and then the opening bars of Wondring Aloud, with Ian sitting on the stool, and everything that followed, just sent chills up my spine, through the back of my head and I could literally feel a tingling sensation in my cranium. Un-fucking-believable!!!
3) My Tull-trip to England and Scotland with 12 Tull fans, including Mike and his brand new Russian bride, Vicky ; the trip was organized by Jerry Adessa, for the 25th anniversary tour in the Fall of 1993, and Jerry planned the entire intinerary, which was about nine, maybe ten days, at ridculously low cost, starting in Scotland and Isle of Skye, working our way south in a cramped, rented mini-bus, with some very cool Tull fans, we saw many Tull-related sites, Kilmarie House, Dun Ringill, Five Sisters of Kintail, and some non-Tull-related sites, Loch Ness and various little towns and villages in the countryside where we stopped. In all, we saw five Tull shows, Glasgow, Sheffield, Newcastle, and two in London, where we met up with Bev, Lee, Tom and others who were taking an even more extensive tour -- I believe they saw nine shows! This was my first trip to England and Scotland, I have numerous photos -- which will be displayed here soon, I promise, courtesy of the scanner (!) Charlie sent me -- and we met Ian backstage two or three times. What an unforgettable trip that was!
2) The Willie Warmer Affair, i.e., the story of the first time I ever met Ian is one I have told before in serial fashion (which was by accident), on the official board about seven years ago, and it is well-known to some members here. In fact, it was the attempted re-telling of that hilarious story a little over two years ago on another, now-defunct, board-- an attempt that was rudely impeded and harrassed -- that was the straw that broke the camel's back in Paul and I deciding to leave that board to start a brand new board, where ultimate freedom of expression prevails! I will tell it again sometime soon, I promise, but suffice it to say that my friend Mike thought of a very unique and hilarious way to meet Ian after the Nassau Coliseum Catfish Rising show, after we had been promised backstage passes a few day earlier by Heather Perry after the second Paramount Theater show -- even though it was unclear that the passes would be waiting for us when we got there, and even less clear that we would get to meet Ian....but they were there, and we did get to meet Ian, in the most novel and remarkable way imaginable, and I owe it all to Mike!
And now, in case you missed it, the number 1 most memorable Tull-related experience I have ever had, and in fact it happened very recently, with Paul (thanks to Quizz) after the Morristown New Jersey show a few weeks ago:
1) Ian Anderson Meets and Greets the Jethro Tull Board!
The full story behind our meeting remains to be told, and I will do so very soon, as promised.
In the meantime, I would love to read other people's TopTen Tull Moment lists!
Jeff
It could be something someone said, something you did, something that happened, or an experience that you had involving a Tull concert rather than Tull's performance at said concert. But it is not limited to concerts, it could be anything related to Tull.
Here are mine:
10) Meeting Dan last year in Schenectady before and after one of Ian's shows. Rob (a/k/a mothermonkey1) and I took one of our many Tull road trips and we had planned in advance to meet Dan before the show, which we did, quickly discovering that he was quite an agreeable and jovial fellow! Our initial impression was reinforced after the show when we pounded numerous beers with him and others until the 4:00 a.m. last call at the local dive bar near the venue. As the beers flowed, we had progressively lively and fun conversations and were entertained by a crazy, shit-faced chick, Raquel. She had a thing for Dan, and he was having a lot of fun toying with her!
9) The Biltmore Hotel Bar in Providence, RI, after opening night of the U.S. Catfish Rising Tour in 1991 was a memorable night, one where numerous and lasting friendships were made among Tull fans, and band members were hanging by the bar chatting with fans, with Peggy doing a lot of the buying as I recall. I caught a glimpse of Ian entering, but he was quickly ushered to a private area of the restaurant, so we did not get to meet him. This is when I met Rob, Ken Greene, Beverely, Lee and others for the first time, and the seeds of the first USA convention -- held six or seven months later in Newport -- were sewn. That was a great night!
8) Little Milton's Birthday Bash, held around June or July of 1992, I think, only a couple of months after the Providence convention. This was the best Tull party I ever attended. I went with Mike (icecreamman) and his new Russian girlfriend, Vicky, whom he later married, and I was with a hot little Chinese girl I was seeing at the time. Proceedings were conducted at a rented out, run-down funky little townhouse in Alphabet City in the East Village, at a pre-gentrified time when Alphabet City was still a threatening and kind of dangerous place, unlike now. Jerry Adessa organized and Dennis Landau helped out, shlepping a lot of stuff into the place to get things ready. There were huge deli sandwiches, with all the trimmings, plus ample quantities of beer, and marijuana could be smoked openly right outside on the stoop, because the cops simply didn't care back then. Entertainment was provided by Dennis and Benjamin, who warmed up the crowd, followed by Tull cover bands, Jethro Toe (whatever became of them?) and Heresy, who were around for a long time and was one of the best. I still have the tee-shirt from that party. What a blast that was!
7) Seeing Tull at the Erie County Fair in 2000 - I got married in July 2000, and went on a honeymoon right afterward, that caused me to miss Tull's NYC show at the Beacon Theater that year. Needless to say, I was not happy. So, when we returned from Italy, we took a second honeymoon a week later, to Buffalo, to coincide with the Tull show at the Erie County Fair. It was perfect because my wife had never been to Buffalo or Niagara Falls, and that is such a honeymoon thing to do, and since I went to law school in the area, I knew all the right places to take her, including JJ's House of Breakfast, "Home of the 99 cent Breakfast" when I was there in the mid-eighties, and when we returned it was still the home of the 99 cent breakfast! The propietors were two Indian brothers, Jay and Juged who still remembered me after so many years, which goes to show how many 99 cent breakfasts I had there! Anyway, on the day of the show we spent the day going on rides and the evening listening to the Young Dubliners and then, in a smoking set, Jethro Tull!
6) The release of Broadsword and the Beast was a very exciting one, and despite my well-known criticisms of that album, which I now consider Tull's worst, I was happy as a pig in shit. I just happened to be at the Brandeis Univ. radio station the day an advance copy came into the station, because I knew some of the DJs and I would often go there and hang out. As soon as I saw it, I called one of my best college friends, Fred, who over the previous two years, I had succeeded in converting into a Tull freak, to the point where it was scary, because he learned every word to every song and was more into it than even I was! However, Fred was not there so I was unable to talk to him, and there were no answering machines or cellphones back then. It was snowing rather furiously, and although I didn't know it at the time, Fred was trudging through the snow from clear across the other side of the campus, where his dorm was.....but he was unaware of the new Tull release, so he was just coming for a visit. I found out later that he nearly turned back several times because of the snow, but something drove him on, some intangible feeling that he had to come visit me! Anyway, when he arrived to my dorm he quickly learned of my whereabouts and came to the radio station -- where we listened to and dissected Broadsword all night, so that we can review it for The Justice (campus weekly), which we did. I can still remember the look on Fred's face when he entered the radio station and I, without saying a word, shoved the brand new album in front of him. His jaw literally dropped open!
5) Meeting Ian with Rob after a Washington DC show in April 2002 - I had not been on a Tull trip in several years, so I decided to build a mini-road trip around a business meeting that my wife had to attend in Baltimore right smack in between the Phildadephia show (opening night of that tour) and the two D.C. shows. So, this was a road trip with my wife, not Rob, but I learned when we got to D.C. that Rob was on his own solo road trip! To backtrack, though, first Karen and I went to see Tull at Philly, then we spent a night or two at Cape May, off-season, then we went to her Baltimore conference and the two D.C. shows, where we met up with Rob. The order of that is perhaps somewhat mixed up, but it was something like that. At the first D.C. show, the late Tony Snow came in with his wife and two daughters to see the show, and they sat in the row directly in front of us. That night, after the show, we were hanging out a nearby bar where we knew the Tull boys would be going after the show, and my wife was elated to meet and speak with Martin, Andy and Jonathan Noyce! I've got great pictures of her with those guys, and she's smiling from ear to ear. The next night, after the second D.C. show, we hung around the venue afterward, and talked for some time with Willy Porter, before Ian and Shona walked by! Rob and I went up to him, because Rob wanted to tell Ian his 9/11 story (Rob is a 9/11 survivor who barely escaped the carnage eight months earlier, by running all the way down Broadway to the southern tip of Manhattan, with the refrain "no way to slow down" running through his head the entire time.) I stood there, not saying much of anything, just listening to Rob talk about his experience, and watching Ian and Shona listening to Rob, intently and with growing fascination, and asking many questions to Rob. Amazing.
4) My first two Tull shows, SFTW and HH It was maybe three years after I discovered Tull before I saw them for the first time at MSG in 1977, and the second time the year later for the Bursting Out tour. I was 16 and 17, respectively, in the early days of my concert-going history, maybe I had seen four or five other shows before that, Jefferson Starship, Frampton, Styx and Aerosmith, but from the minute I got onto that train at the Stony Brook station, I knew Tull was going to be something special. For both of those shows, the Long Island Railroad train cars were filled with older, college age kids, drinking and smoking with impunity, and the way they were talking about Jethro Tull in such a cool and intellectual way, about the lyrics, about the show, about it all, was what impressed me the most. And then, for SFTW, getting to MSG, the place was sold out, there were these two guys dressed up as Ian in the riding tights and boots, with the red bowler hats, parading around the mezzanine, holding up both ends of a banner, which read, in Gothic print "Ian Anderson is My God", the experience of all that, the giant cloud of pot smoke, etc., and then the opening bars of Wondring Aloud, with Ian sitting on the stool, and everything that followed, just sent chills up my spine, through the back of my head and I could literally feel a tingling sensation in my cranium. Un-fucking-believable!!!
3) My Tull-trip to England and Scotland with 12 Tull fans, including Mike and his brand new Russian bride, Vicky ; the trip was organized by Jerry Adessa, for the 25th anniversary tour in the Fall of 1993, and Jerry planned the entire intinerary, which was about nine, maybe ten days, at ridculously low cost, starting in Scotland and Isle of Skye, working our way south in a cramped, rented mini-bus, with some very cool Tull fans, we saw many Tull-related sites, Kilmarie House, Dun Ringill, Five Sisters of Kintail, and some non-Tull-related sites, Loch Ness and various little towns and villages in the countryside where we stopped. In all, we saw five Tull shows, Glasgow, Sheffield, Newcastle, and two in London, where we met up with Bev, Lee, Tom and others who were taking an even more extensive tour -- I believe they saw nine shows! This was my first trip to England and Scotland, I have numerous photos -- which will be displayed here soon, I promise, courtesy of the scanner (!) Charlie sent me -- and we met Ian backstage two or three times. What an unforgettable trip that was!
2) The Willie Warmer Affair, i.e., the story of the first time I ever met Ian is one I have told before in serial fashion (which was by accident), on the official board about seven years ago, and it is well-known to some members here. In fact, it was the attempted re-telling of that hilarious story a little over two years ago on another, now-defunct, board-- an attempt that was rudely impeded and harrassed -- that was the straw that broke the camel's back in Paul and I deciding to leave that board to start a brand new board, where ultimate freedom of expression prevails! I will tell it again sometime soon, I promise, but suffice it to say that my friend Mike thought of a very unique and hilarious way to meet Ian after the Nassau Coliseum Catfish Rising show, after we had been promised backstage passes a few day earlier by Heather Perry after the second Paramount Theater show -- even though it was unclear that the passes would be waiting for us when we got there, and even less clear that we would get to meet Ian....but they were there, and we did get to meet Ian, in the most novel and remarkable way imaginable, and I owe it all to Mike!
And now, in case you missed it, the number 1 most memorable Tull-related experience I have ever had, and in fact it happened very recently, with Paul (thanks to Quizz) after the Morristown New Jersey show a few weeks ago:
1) Ian Anderson Meets and Greets the Jethro Tull Board!
The full story behind our meeting remains to be told, and I will do so very soon, as promised.
In the meantime, I would love to read other people's TopTen Tull Moment lists!
Jeff