Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson Rocks to Bach in California

Given the right circumstances, you really can rock out to Bach. Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson proved that at the sold out Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo, Calif. on Saturday, when his solo band jammed to a classical composition penned two centuries before the advent of rock 'n' roll.

Jokingly introducing it as "a disrespectful take on a piece of music [Johann Sebastian Bach] wrote," Anderson launched into 'Bourree,' inspired by Bach's 'Bourree in E Minor.' Originally included on Tull's 1969 album 'Stand Up,' Anderson said it's a tune you might expect to hear on a "cruise from hell."

The Bach composition, which has also been sampled by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Tenacious D, was originally written for the lute, though it has long been a favorite of guitarists like Florian Opahle, the 26-year-old classically-trained axeman in Anderson's band.

In a concert featuring acoustic versions of Tull songs, 'Bourree' was ironically the first with a rock edge. Other songs offered nods to world music ('Skating Away on the Thin Ice'), jazz ('Serenade to a Cuckoo') and blues ('Some Day the Sun Won't Shine for You'). In between trilling solos on his flute, Anderson occasionally offered self-deprecating jokes about his music.

"Just because it's old doesn't make it good," he said after 'Some Day the Sun Won't Shine For You.' "Sometimes it's just f---ing old."

While many of the songs in Anderson's set were deep cuts rearranged for a musically varied band, Anderson concluded with two familiar rockers, 'Aqualung' and 'Locomotive Breath,' proving old doesn't necessarily make songs bad either.