STORMWATCH (THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY FORCE 10 EDITION)

The lavish 4CD/2DVD boxed set presentation of Stormwatch really helps rehabilitate a somewhat overlooked album from the Tull back catalogue. As well as providing the now-customary Steven Wilson remix of the album itself - which does a fair job of teasing out the subtleties of a studio release which, as the accompanying book notes, would in retrospect always be somewhat marred by the discord within the band at this time, it also provides an absolutely superb live performance from the 1980 Stormwatch tour.

Soundboard bootlegs of the 16th March 1980 show from the Nederlands Congregsgebouw have circulated widely under various titles like Watchers On the Storm and On the Move/Move On (the former with a clutch of unrelated recordings as bonus tracks, the latter providing just the show), but by providing an official, tidied-up release of the show the Stormwatch box has largely rendered these bootlegs redundant.

And what a show it is! Tull had taken several months off touring after the end of their 1979 US tour, which had been marred by ill feeling within the band and towards the end of which they received the devastating news of John Glascock's death. The spring 1980 tour of Europe would prove to be the final hurrah for an incarnation of the band that (bar for John Glascock's departure) had remained stable since Songs From the Wood or thereabouts, with the shift in sound and personnel around "A" heralding a new era for the group.

Maybe the group sensed that it was time to see off this era of the band with a bang, not a whimper - or perhaps they wanted to do John Glascock proud. Either way, any evidence of the ill feeling which had marred the US tour is absent and the band deliver a magnificent set. Naturally, Stormwatch is well-represented, with seven of its ten tracks presented to open the concert - and the live renditions here breathe new life into compositions which on the studio LP hadn't quite put their best foot forward. This bit of business done with, the rest of the concert consists of some folk and classical adaptations and gems from the Tull repertoire. It's a magnificent live set, and Chrysalis truly were caught snoozing when they let the bootleggers have their way with it for so many years.

Fortunately, with the deluxe release that wrong is righted. I still think Stormwatch is no more than a 4 star album and the weakest of the triptych that began with Songs From the Wood, but the remix here makes me more confident about conceding it that fourth star. The live show, on the other hand, is a five-star marvel.