Ian Anderson at Akron Civic Theater

Akron, OH; 4 November 2012

Review by Pete Storey

In September of 1968 I was a freshman at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio (yea, I'm 62!) At the time, I was primarily listening to the Beatles, the Stones, and the Kinks, with some Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary thrown in on occasion. That October an album was released by a new UK group called Jethro Tull. The album was This Was and I completely missed it, along with their next two albums in '69 and '70, Stand Up and Benefit. It wasn't until late in 1971 that my cousin Mark made me listen to a Tull album titled Aqualung that completely caught me off guard and changed my musical listening path.  These guys had such a unique style, as good as anything I had heard to date, but it was their lead singer, Ian Anderson that really caught my attention with his haunting flute and perfect acoustic guitar playing. I was hooked!  I owned a Panasonic 7" reel to reel tape recorder/player and began accumulating my Tull library. I have followed the band ever since Aqualung and have most every release of note since then. Of course, I also backtracked and picked up the first three I had missed. I have skipped a few albums through the years, mainly because of duplication of songs they contained. Through all of these years, one album remained my favorite: Thick as a Brick, released in 1972. It was a "concept album", telling the imaginary story of a ten-year old boy named Gerald Bostock. The album has no real individual songs, it goes from beginning to end with no breaks and I have heard it was actually recorded that way, in its entirety.  The opening "title song" is really the only radio play time it received.

Award season is well underway... and with the Academy Awards right around the corner the Sound Bar would like to beg the question:

Do you remember the sound…

of your favorite film score or soundtrack?

From the Sound Bar's Sound Vault: 2012 Live Shows in Review

by Zack Fletcher

I've been to so many shows at this point that I'm certain my subconscious is demanding improbable things of the acts I make an effort to see.  I want to be lost in the sounds.  I want to be overwhelmed by the emotions they evoke.  I want the goosebumps and momentary welling of tears or the uncontrollable smiles, yells and fists pumps to the air.  In short, when I spend the money and the time to go to a live show, I want my expectations to be exceeded.  I want to be blown away.

It seemed like these feelings were happening less and less, so by the end of 2011 I had committed myself to attending less concerts.  I felt I must have squeezed every last drop of joy out of the experience and maybe my concert going days had peaked.  Maybe it was time to save the effort and begin the slow descent to fewer and fewer live shows.

Then 2012 came along and presented dozens of opportunities that became harder and harder to turn down.  One by one, to my delight, each concert I went to encouraged me to continue attending, to keep searching for those moments of musical bliss, to keep sharing these moments with friends and loved ones.  So I kept going until 2012 became one of my most prized years of live shows thus far.  2012 will be a hard year to beat... but it was an adamant reminder that for someone who loves music, the magic of a live show is a necessary part of life.  I'm already looking forward to the next one...

Here's a look at some of my favorite live music moments of 2012:

Alex Baird, known well as the drummer for Flaming Hot Marbles, has released his own album, entitled "You Can Play These Songs With Your Eyes Closed" and you can download the entire digital album over on Bandcamp for only $4! Feel free to listen to the music and enjoy. You can link over to Bandcamp here. 

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