Living in the Present with Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson
September 14, 2007

“I’m one of the those people that think that live concerts don’t warrant repeat viewing, whereas, if you have an audio only piece, you might listen to it hundreds or thousands of times in a lifetime,” says Ian Anderson, leader

I spoke with Anderson a couple of weeks back on the eve of the DVD release of EagleVision’s Jethro Tull: Live at Montreux, 2003 and found myself surprised to find that the famed singer, songwriter, guitarist, flautist and rock’n’roll frontman was not the kind of artist who’s content with—in the words of one of his band’s most well-known songs—“living in the past.” And though Anderson appreciates his band’s history, he feels that vintage Tull performances such as those filmed on the Isle of Wight and for The Rolling Stones Rock’n’Roll Circus TV special, “have some historic perspective, but don’t necessarily represent Tull as much as the era.”

As for Montreux, Anderson’s thoughts are that “it’s more contemporary and filmed quite beautifully in HD.”

But what it comes to living in the past, Anderson is most comfortable when he’s doing it on stage in front of an audience--and in the present. 

“What I particularly enjoy about my musical career is that that my songs, or parts of my songs, create a connection between the past and the present,” he said. ”Songs I did 20 or 30 years still fit in today. One fortunate thing for a musician is that you can revisit earlier works and play them today for real people with real emotions. A painter or novelist can’t really do that.”

Posted by Laurence Lerman on September 14, 2007 | Comments (0)