Mrs Farmer and I went to see Jethro Tull at Coventry Cathedral for their Christmas concert the other night and there were some quite bizarre moments. I knew there would be guests. Coventry choir, carols, very good and got us in the Christmas mood. Then Mark Almond no less, talking at length and doing at least three songs including say hello say goodbye. Not my cuppa tea . Then .... And here is the really strange bit.... Lloyd Grossman . This ex through the keyhole , MasterChef presenter is now a punk rocker!! He did a couple of songs , lightweight punk pop in the vein of the Buzzcocks . Jethro Tull playing punk with Lloyd Grossman! Never even crossed my mind that I would never see that, but I did. TBH it was awful but made us laugh. We were joking that we paid to see JT and should get a refund ! Midway there was a short sermon and a prayer. Later JT played My God , Ian Anderson's 50 year old attack on religion with the enormous freeze of Jesus being spotlighted.
I think it was a fund raiser for the Cathedral and not listed as part of the tour . There was I guess around 700 people there, and it seemed to me a fair few people who were there, were there because they were Church goers. There was no security , you literally walked past the back of stage with no stewards around to go to the toilet. In these days of paranoia it was quite refreshing. IA just can't sing so well these days either. Solstice bells was sung by John O Hara and David Goodier, and I think IA sang around six or seven songs in total. Despite Mark Almond and Lloyd Grossman ( or maybe because) we did have a laugh. Quite a strange night but actually the whole thing had a lovely atmosphere and got us in the festive spirit after this awful year.