UDER WRAPS
tked ladies (ladies?) bursting out of large per bags, astronaut moonwalking on ige, disturbing drum machine rhythms, 's keyboards galore and a vocal crisis in 5 making. These were key ingredients of 5 Under Wraps tour of 1984.
th the advent of the then new digital :hnology and more sophisticated nthesizers, we had embarked on a largely jctronic album of songs mostly devoted to ies, secrecy and subterfuge.
most Tull fans, the idea of us sounding like a cross between The Police and Thomas ilby was a little bit of a stretch in credibility. The fact was, we did it rather well. Not as >ll as Police and Dolby perhaps but, you know, rather well. Of course, I would love • le and energy permitting (both short in supply at the time of writing this) - to re-record ) Under Wraps material today with real drums and a less-than-dated keyboard und. But the songs were good and the playing of M. Barre and D. Pegg was brilliant. ' vocals were as good as they would ever be, extending my usually limited range i wer like never before. Problem was, the long tour to support this performance-te »um took its toll after many weeks of concerts, first in LA at the Universal Amphith d later in Australia when some shows were cancelled or re-scheduled as a result ( /ngitis and severe vocal strain.
turning to the UK, I decided to take - for the first time - a few months away • ging and switch my focus temporarily to Aquaculture and my Scottish farminc :ivities. All this turned out to be quite worthwhile as the period "off" allowed for some lection and recharging of spiritual batteries as well as the time to record the follow-up •urn Crest Of A Knave. This would prove eventually to restore the faith of Tull fans -Decially in the USA - where the Nouvelle Tull sound had failed to capture the attention radio and the media in the wake of floundering changes in formats and fashions.
t, hey, you have to push the boundaries a little in the pursuit of musical adventures, point in staying forever in the clutches of 70's sounds and analogue keys, valves, am flutes and tree-gobbling guitars. Gotta move on. And then move back ain..........
The guitars are now free of unsustainable forest choppings, the flute steams up as
alway; Organs to fire u stallion
Bu-
Keyboan splendour, tech electrons in return for plastic keybo; to what they
more power and passion, and t ids sound again like Hammond
' pianos. Martin Barre has son acuum tubes in his back pocket
chy guitar sound of rar lion Marshalls in heat. One rampant
" "artin Lancelot guy, what?
ittese, brought musical ideas-a-plenty wrapped up in Fender-r Rhodes had briefly decided to enter the buzzy, fuzzy world of highland bestowed freebie keys and assorted equipment on a grateful Peter, unswerving allegiance to a bad marketing plan involving inable
s. Fender never were to crack the keyboard market and soon returned best. Strats, Teles and the sublime craft of American guitar building.
The album may have lacked a real drummer but the supporting tour did not: one young Doane Big-Boy Perry advanced over the horizon like an overgrown schoolboy on a driven mission to a first and virginal encounter with an older woman. Enthusiastic and schooled in the dubious benefits of 70's Prog-rock, the Doanester put muscle back into the live performance of Under Wraps and intelligent drum arranging into the re-energising of older
material.
■llllli..
So, let's dedicate this album to the missing drums of Doane Perry. To the tour he did and the record he should have done. 20 years ago.
Ian Anderson
2004
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