FLUTE MAGIC: REMO PERFORMS WITH JETHRO TULL

Dubai had a treat on 10th February 2005 as the legendary Jethro Tull performed with Remo in a concert aptly titled Desert Fusion, held at the Le Meridien Mina Seyahi.
 
The concert started with Indian percussion ace Sivamani playing all kinds of western and Indian rhythms on his impressive array of drums. He was joined on stage by Ian Anderson on flute and Jon Noyce on bass towards the end of his set.

 This was followed by Remo, backed by Rock Lazarus [Bass] and Munna Chari [Dholak] and Sivamani [Percussions], who received a thunderous round of applause as Remo announced that his first piece would be a Goan folk song since he wished to expose his home roots to the international audience gathered there.

Arab, European and Asian fans alike joined lustily in the chorus, with people dancing in the aisles, and it was smooth sailing all the way from there on.

 Remo then announced: “I never dreamt I would one day be invited to perform with Jethro Tull. Much less did I ever imagine that one day I would invite Jethro Tull on stage to back me up on my songs! It is Anderson’s big heartedness which prompted him to do this. I wish to thank him inspiring me to learn the flute.

 ” Ian Anderson and the legendary Jethro Tull then climbed on stage to thunderous applause, and performed Remo’s hits such as “O Meri Munni” and “Bombay City”.

 All the flute solos on these songs, which are usually played by Remo, were played by Ian Anderson on this night, who added a typical Tull dimension to them.

 “Maria Pita Che”, with the audience chanting along once more and with Tull guitarist Martin Barre doing a mandolin solo, brought the first half of the concert to a rousing end.

After the intermission, Ian Anderson started the set all alone on acoustic guitar, with the soft and poignant “Life Is A Long Song”. He was then joined on stage by Jethro Tull, and the rest of the set was pure Tull magic, with classic hits from his previous albums [such as “Aqualung” and “Thick as a Brick”] as well the new ones [such as “The Christmas Album”]. The five man band played all the famous Tull complex arrangements as though they were a full fledged symphonic orchestra.

 Tull die-hard fans had a ball, the cold winter desert winds notwithstanding.

After half a dozen Tull classics, Anderson invited Remo and Sivamani back on stage,  to join him on songs such as “Mother Goose” and “Up To Me”. After which Anderson and Remo set the stage on fire with a version of Remo’s “The Flute Song”, on which both flautists pranced all around the stage like possessed pied pipers, driving the audience totally wild.

After another couple of Tull songs came the grand finale, “Locomotive Breath”, with Remo joining Anderson in singing the second verse of this most popular and famous of all Tull hits ever.

 To quote “The Khaleej Times”, Dubai’s leading daily, from its concert review dated 12th February 2005: “It should be said at times Remo overshadowed the other artists on stage.”