Running two Gradle application tasks concurrently in same project - gradle

Question

It looks like when I try to run a second Gradle task for the same project in a different window, the second one blocks on a lock. Is there a straightforward way around this?
What I'm trying to do: My project has a couple server subprojects that both use the application plugin. I'd like to start both (e.g., $ gradle :server1:run) so I could connect and try them out.
I know I can write a task to deploy the two servers to a test area and start them there, but the application:run task is convenient during development for one application, so I'd like to use it for two if possible.
I'm using Gradle 2.7.

Answer 1

Here is what I ended up doing. Rather than using the application plugin's run task, I used installDist, and wrote a simple task to run the generated start script. Then I extended it by creating a simple service script that I stored under src/dist/bin. The script handles start, stop, and status operations. The final result:
ext.installDir = "$buildDir/install/" + project.name
ext.command = "$installDir/bin/" + project.name
task start(type:Exec, dependsOn:'installDist') {
description "Starts the " + applicationName + " application"
workingDir "$installDir"
commandLine "$command", "start"
}
task stop(type:Exec, dependsOn:'installDist') {
description "Stops the " + applicationName + " application"
workingDir "$installDir"
commandLine "$command", "stop"
}
task status(type:Exec, dependsOn:'installDist') {
description "Displays the " + applicationName + " application status"
workingDir "$installDir"
commandLine "$command", "status"
}
Now from the parent project I can just type:
$ gradlew start
to start both servers and
$ gradlew stop
to shut them both down.