What's geekier than going to a Yes concert? Going to a Jon Anderson SOLO show! Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows my obsession with that "elfin voice" (as my mother says) but fellow Yes fans can be a little creepy in their devotion. (And coming from me, that's saying something!) Going to a solo show has to move one to a whole other level on the scale.
Now, to be perfectly honest, I have to admit to being less than satisfied by the Yes-men of late. Although they are always a great band to see live, there are only so many times you can hear the same version of Roundabout without wishing they'd mix it up a little, and the last really decent album they put out was The Ladder, which was quite awhile ago. And so there was a part of me that thought this show would be more amusing than anything else-- it was mostly the thought of being able to see Jon at such close range (show was at Avalon) that was too tempting to give up. Anyway, I bought two tickets, and bribed the famed "little bro" to come with.
The crowd was as I expected-- little bro and I were just about the youngest ones there by 10-15 years. Various audience members lamented the addition of Trevor Rabin to the line-up in the 80's. (Two things, people: 1. Yes probably wouldn't still be an entity if he hadn't revitalised the group back then, and 2. That was 20 years ago now, GET OVER IT.) Many insisted on shouting out names of classic Yes tunes at inappropriate times. I lamented having to be associated with these particular people.
But, the music? I went prepared to be amused, and maybe even disappointed. The reality... Jon did what I've wanted Yes to do for several years now-- play some new stuff with energy, and find a way to make the old stuff interesting to someone who has heard it many times over. I am in love again.
Now, to be perfectly honest, I have to admit to being less than satisfied by the Yes-men of late. Although they are always a great band to see live, there are only so many times you can hear the same version of Roundabout without wishing they'd mix it up a little, and the last really decent album they put out was The Ladder, which was quite awhile ago. And so there was a part of me that thought this show would be more amusing than anything else-- it was mostly the thought of being able to see Jon at such close range (show was at Avalon) that was too tempting to give up. Anyway, I bought two tickets, and bribed the famed "little bro" to come with.
The crowd was as I expected-- little bro and I were just about the youngest ones there by 10-15 years. Various audience members lamented the addition of Trevor Rabin to the line-up in the 80's. (Two things, people: 1. Yes probably wouldn't still be an entity if he hadn't revitalised the group back then, and 2. That was 20 years ago now, GET OVER IT.) Many insisted on shouting out names of classic Yes tunes at inappropriate times. I lamented having to be associated with these particular people.
But, the music? I went prepared to be amused, and maybe even disappointed. The reality... Jon did what I've wanted Yes to do for several years now-- play some new stuff with energy, and find a way to make the old stuff interesting to someone who has heard it many times over. I am in love again.
P.S. Sorry for the horrifying formatting in the previous post, I seem to be having trouble getting the paragraph breaks to publish consistently. See, now it's happening again-- this P.S. is supposed to have a break between it and the last paragraph... Kla, any clues?
2 comments:
Hey there! I have NO idea what was going on with the formatting in the previous post, but I found multiple rogue HTML tags between each paragraph, so I cleaned them up and republished the post. Very weird.
Do you use the "Preview" feature before publishing the post? If so, I'm guessing those tags weren't in the post at that point. Your next one seems fine, so let's just call it Blogger weirdness. :)
Oh, and btw, "Two things, people...2. That was 20 years ago now, GET OVER IT.) had me howling...
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