Jethro Tull Announce Live Box Set 'Bursting Out (The Inflated Edition)'

Bursting Out, Jethro Tull’s first live album, was recorded at various locations during the European Heavy Horses tour in May and June 1978. Now, the album will be reissued in an expanded triple CD and triple DVD set, remixed by Steven Wilson with an array of extras.

"A live extravaganza from the 70s Jethro Tull, remarked the band's leader Ian Anderson in a statement.  "This was recorded over several nights in different venues on a portable 8-track tape recorder and transferred to 2” multitrack when I got home after the tours. I had to listen all through to many shows and pick the best live versions. But much of it was, at least, from the concert in Bern, Switzerland, where dear Claude Nobs came to introduce the band in his inimitable style. Also featuring on this box set collection is the live concert from Madison Square Gardens recorded a few months later and shown live on BBC TV in the UK. A scary experience for the band as it was, we were told, the first time a live rock concert had been the subject of a live satellite broadcast. 

"The band lineup at this time was a fine-tuned machine and, although missing the unwell John Glascock for the MSG show, it serves as a fine testimony for the many wonderful shows we did in the 70s before general touring fatigue and burn-out began a year or so later."

Here's how Bursting Out (The Inflated Edition) breaks down:

CD 1: Jethro Tull live: Bursting Out (Part 1) - A Steven Wilson stereo remix Soundcheck recordings - A Steven Wilson stereo remix. Tracks 7, 10, 11 (full version) & 12-16 previously unreleased

CD 2: Jethro Tull live: Bursting Out (Part 2) - A Steven Wilson stereo remix Soundcheck recordings - A Steven Wilson stereo remix. Tracks 11-13 previously unreleased

CD 3: Contains an edited version of the 1978 Madison Square Garden Show which was issued in 2009 but now mixed by Steven Wilson.

DVDs 1 & 2 have the remixed tracks in 96/24 stereo and 5.1 surround plus the flat transfers of the original album at 96/24 stereo.

DVD 3 has the full 93-minute MSG show, including 50+ minutes of video which was part of a transatlantic broadcast with the BBC and Radio 1. The audio is 48/24 stereo and 5.1 surround.

When it was first reissued on CD in 1990, Bursting Out was available as a double-disc CD in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, but as a single CD release in the United States, with three tracks (“Quatrain,” “Sweet Dream” and “Conundrum”) omitted to fit the 80 minutes CD length, while the double-disc 1990 CD version in the United Kingdom (and Europe) incorporated the first track for both discs (the Introductions) in the song that follows. In 2004, the complete album was released worldwide as a two-disc set with the Introductions as separate tracks.