Opened by Clouds.

This show was open to teens under 21 – no alcohol was served. Unfortunately, the air conditioning was not yet installed, and the kids worked up quite a sweat. Peter Altman of the Star was disappointed at the first show. Although he found the group to be outstanding, he posited that they had not become “super-popular” because they don’t stand out.

What was missing in the first set was individuality and a quality one might call repose or ease. There was little sense that the musicians had anything very personal to say. Wit was not pronounced. Solos lacked variety. There was not a great deal of attention devoted to free musical conversation. Often the musicians seemed to be playing by the book or off in their own private worlds.

Make no mistake. The sounds Tull provided were superior. The quintet has substance, and Anderson has showmanship, too. Tull played about an hour and a half and never dried up. They gave enjoyment. But whether or not they were up for their first set Sunday, they didn’t really switch on the Depot crowd of perhaps 500. There seemed to be thousands of people in line for the second show as I left the old Greyhound terminal. Maybe that inspired a really exciting session.

Ron Dachis, reporting for Hundred Flowers, was there for the second show and reported a block-long line eight people wide stretching along 7th Street, overflowing into the streets, waiting for the first show to end. Will Shapira’s review for the Insider reported that the Depot was “pretty full” for the first set and “absolutely jammed” for the second. And the quality of the two shows were markedly different as well:

The group somehow got fouled up in its first set and never approached the heights they were to reach later in the evening. There seemed to be two main causes of their difficulty: equipment failure and a proclivity to veer away from their energizing group sound into long, boring, empty ego-trip solos. New keyboard man John Evan, lead guitarist Martin Barre and drummer Clive Bunker were all guilty; even the group’s dynamic leader, Ian Anderson, was off his form in that first set.

The second set was something else, again, however… and it was all the more remarkable because the group played the very same tunes both sets!

. . .

Jethro Tull had not only flown us into a new day and month but, hopefully, The Depot had moved us into a new period of musical experience and excitement.

The opening act was Clouds, a Scottish band touring with Jethro Tull. On this day they were also having equipment problems. Altman deemed the trio “tedious;” Dachis called Clouds “repetitious and dull.”