Back when I was in 6th grade, I heard one of the other students was repeating the lyrics from the song "Aqualung" and talking about the record so I went to the record store near Westbury Square called Evolution Records and bought it. Evolution Records was a Hippie type shop and I thought it was one of the coolest places in the world at that time. They always had a hippie dude working behind the counter and insense burning. That and all the Rock records (now classic rock) displayed on all the walls. They had some black lights and lots of posters which they sold also.
I listened to it quite a bit and when the band "Jethro Tull" came to town about a year or so later I went to the concert. It was in the Sam Houston Coliseum which was right next to the Music Hall in downtown Houston. It is the same place the had Houston Wrestling with Paul Bosch, The guy from the I W marks commercial who wears the earing and says "If I.W. Marks can make my ears look this good..."
When I went to the concert I thought it was absolutely the coolest thing in the world. I went with a Junior High School friend named Paul Coke. One thing that struck me at the time was how much the band sounded like the record. Very good sound quality compared to other rock concerts. It was the tour associated with the next album after Aqualung which was called "Thick as a Brick"
Ian Anderson is a great songwriter and musician and I still feel like those are the two best Jethro Tull Albums. Not that the others aren't good but they don't have the same feel. To me anyway.
The song "Bungle in the Jungle" was a pop hit at the time but it didn't sound like what I expected Jethro Tull to sound like. The later albums are very good also but they are more Ian Anderson as a Solo Artist compared to the early Jethro Tull which sounded more band oriented to me.
Aqualung was big album as far as impact on Rock. It had sort of a metal sound but also was folky at the same time. There is alot of Acoustic Guitar and each song is very strong on it's own. The whole album seems to fit as group and there are quite a few refences to the church and how they got it wrong. It was sort an early attack on the "moral majority" mentality.
The reason I was thinking about Jethro Tull & Aqualung is that I was driving home from a gig last week and they played the album at midnight.
I still have the record. Not the original one from when I was a kid but I bought another copy at a used record store about 10 years ago.
It is my Internet Album Pick of the week.
