Songs of praise with a difference

THE longtime guitarist for a band that has sold 60 million albums worldwide will be performing a track called Hymn 43 at a Tyneside venue.

- TONY HENDERSON

Guitarist Martin Barre

The song is from the band Jethro Tull’s Aqualung album, which was released in 1971 and sold more the seven million copies.

Now lead guitarist Martin Barre brings his own band to The Exchange in Howard Street in North Shields on January 30, when they will perform Aqualung in its entirety.

And Hymn 43 will be a very different sound to the hymns that were heard in the venue building, which this year is celebrating its 170th anniversary.

In 1856 work began on the now-listed building, which was to become the Wesleyan Reform Methodist chapel and Sunday School. The interior was embellished with an ornamental sun light of 46 gas jets and a radiant centre piece with an inner circle of 25 jets below an ornate ventilation roundel.