Jethro Tull - "A New Day Yesterday" (Chrysalis 90 min.)

It's quite weird that this patchy "documentary" still is the only way to see some 70's clips of Jethro Tull on DVD, especially when you consider that Tull were one of the biggest and most popular bands of the 70's. The concert in Madison Square Garden from 1978 should be the most obvious and easy thing (it was broadcasted worldwide) to release on DVD, but so far nothing has happened. "A New Day Yesterday" is not even much of a documentary, as it only shows new and old members of Tull gathering together at a pub for the 25th anniversary of the band back in '94. Here they come with lots of loose comments while watching old clips of themselves. This sequence will tell you little or almost nothing about the history of the band or the albums. However, a great improvement on the DVD compared to the original VHS-version is that you can see several of the clips in their full length after the documentary. The highlight is undoubtedly the performance of "Aqualung" from 1977. The video for "The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" is a nice souvenir, although it also explains why the band went off the edge with "A Passion Play". The fact that the band obviously used playback for both "Teacher" (where the hell is the flute?) and "Witches Promises" reduces my interest in those clips considerably. I would rather have liked to see more of "Nothing is Easy" from Isle of Wight in 1970 and "Minstrel in the Gallery" from Paris in 1975. And why should I care to watch such more recent drivel like "Rocks on the Road"? No matter what Mr. Anderson believes, only the most devoted followers will find much interest in what the band have done after the 70's. Let's hope that it soon will come a much more solid DVD with lots of concert footage of Tull from the 70's, as time is long overdue for such a release.


Welcome Page | LP Reviews | Labels | DVD Reviews | Links | Credits