Yes - State Theatre 15/Nov/2014

Majestic Nostalgia

There's nothing so life affirming as hearing the music you loved growing up, played live by the very people. There's definitely something comforting in hearing something you know like the back of your hand, visiting the emotional landscape you trod so often in your adolescence. At some point that's all the pleasure you need, all the comfort you need. Should Yes be breaking new ground even unto this point in their careers? Is that a fair kind of expectation? Should their fans have to step up to new horizons with this band? It sure makes one wonder.

In the mean time, a night of Yes going through mostly their older portions of their successful catalogue is a night of majestic nostalgia.

What's Good About It

What's good about Yes this time through is that Jon Davison has become more accustomed to the music and found his voice within the music. The last time I saw them, Davison had just arrived and was singing in only his fifth gig with the band. The band have also tinkered with the arrangements so even the really familiar tracks had little interesting wrinkles in them.

The light show was better than last time and they sound really good in the State Theatre. It just seems to be a good fit for the music and the sound and the space. With a few odd moments, the playing is still superb. Overall, the band still has the nimbleness of turning on a dime as well as the rigorous discipline of playing complex passages with precision.

More importantly the gestalt of Yes music was very much alive and present, and so the sonorous passages of their most splendiferous amazing wonderful extraordinary beautiful music, came alive. There were no metaphorical clowns, no tigers, lions or bears. Just the glory of Yes music.

Jon Anderson quipped last year "Squire said, 'we don't do reggae'". It's a very good thing that Yes play on the beat, uncompromising and hard. It's the way rock bands ought to be.

What's Bad About It

They started a little slow with the opening number 'Close to the Edge'. It was so noticeably slow that I thought it was going to be a really long night. At one point, after the choral section of 'Close to the Edge' you could hear Geoff Downes push the beat to speed it up but the band fell back to the slower pace straight after the organ break. Sometime during the late part of 'And You And I' the band sort of woke up and started playing at a more familiar speed. By the time they were into 'Siberian Khatru', they were playing with gusto, which was a relief.

It was probably more 'interesting' than 'bad', but for the first twenty minutes it really felt like it was going to be a 3hour concert of Yes-In-Slo-Mo.

What's Interesting About It

With any Yes concert, you always find the choice of material interesting. This concert featured a full in-order play through of 'Close to the Edge' and 'Fragile'. In-between were a couple of tracks form the new album 'Heaven And Earth', while the encore was 'I've Seen All Good People' and 'Owner of a Lonely Heart'.

On the one hand, it was a selection that really favours the golden era of the early 70s when they made their mark, with a couple of current pieces and the hit single from the 1980s. You can't fault the choice, but on the other hand you're left wondering about all the other great moments. There's effectively nothing from 'Tales from Topographic Oceans' through to 'Drama', then 'Big Generator' through to 'Fly From Here'. That's a lot of great music they're not addressing at all. They can't please everyone, but they didn't really go out of their way to please anybody but the Baby Boomers and one token gesture to their 80s success.

That being said - and I don't mean the above as negatively as it might sound - it was a setlist of beautiful Yes music. The highlight of the night was surely the material off 'Fragile' where the most progressive arrangements were brought to life. 'We Have Heaven' segueing into 'South Side of the Sky' was masterfully executed and the vocal arrangements really blossomed beautifully in those sections. 'South Side of the Sky' is one of those rarer gems of Yes' catalogue that doesn't make it on to the set list as often as say, 'Roundabout' or 'Heart of the Sunrise', so it was fully contextualised against the rest of 'Fragile'. The downside is that you wonder if they couldn't find a way to play more  grand things than 'Cans and Brahms' and 'Five percent For Nothing'.

For Absent Friends

'Cans And Brahms' and 'Five Percent For Nothing' were the oddities of the night. 'Cans and Brahms' was in its heyday, Rick Wakeman's spot to show off his chops and the latest sounds of his arsenal of Keyboards. Geoff Downes has the chops, but when he plays it, it becomes historic curio that highlights the quaint old keyboard sounds.

'Five Percent For Nothing' was Bill Bruford's short compositional contribution to 'Fragile'. When the band plays the highly abstract jazz-inflected piece, we're reminded that Bill's long absence from the band, and the guys are just going through the motion for the sake of completeness in playing the whole album. They're both strange moments in the concert. By going for completion, the band opens up an emotional space where other members used to sit, and we become aware of it.

And of course, as good as Jon Davison is, the biggest absent friend is Jon Anderson. Having seen his solo show last year, there were moments I reflected on him not being in the band. Last time they were here without Anderson, it seemed to open up new possibilities. This time through it seemed more of a sad absence.

I Worried About Alan White

In previous occasions, Alan White was the rock solid time-keeper, giving tremendous impetus to the music. This night made me wonder a bit, what with the slowness the start as well as the drum sound not being as prominent and powerful as last time. He just didn't quite sound like ALAN WHITE, the guy who has that big sound on 'Instant Karma' as well as the thunderous fills on 'Drama'. Last time I saw Yes, I walked away feeling like he played the best. This time I felt worried for the first parts of the night, like maybe he was under the weather or something. It just didn't have the same sort of oomph as last time.

And that makes you worry. Bands slow down over time. It's inevitable with maturing and ageing. The flash and sizzle gives way to considered deliberation, but a more prosaic explanation is that people grow old. While the band laboured through the early part of 'Close to the Edge', I really thought "jeez, is the end of Yes nigh?"
It reminded me of Peter Banks' death. It did.

When the pace finally picked up - thankfully - the usual bump-and-grind came back. I guess intimations of mortality is part of great art but for a moment there, I really worried.

Steve Howe And The Mid Range Honk

One of the most interesting things about Yes if you're a guitar geek like me is how Steve Howe changes guitars. It's rare that somebody plays 3 prestige semi-acoustics, let alone the Fender double neck slide guitar and the Line 6 Guitar on the stand. Across all the guitars he plays, there is one thread to the sound that marks out his tone and it's this mid-range honk. A lot of guitar players - especially guys given to distortion and overdrive cut the mids. That scooped mids on the guitar is the sound of metal, and this the big difference why Yes just won't sound metal, even with all the furious riffing.

Because Steve Howe plays these semi-acoustics and usually with a clean tone, he can keep the mid-range in there. In turn, the midrange is everywhere in his tone across all the guitars including the solid bodies. There are moments he sounds unlike any other player on the planet - it can only be Steve Howe playing. Then there are moments his tone even sounds like Frank Zappa's clean tone on 'Zoot Allures', when he gets on the red Stratocaster. When he hits the harmonics, they have this ballsy mid tone that gives them a bloom and sparkling full-ness. It's quite the master lesson in tonal control.

Steve Howe has also changed the solo he plays on 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart'. It's thankfully, no longer the weird country lick melange but a closer approximation of the angular pentatonic played by Trevor Rabin on the original. It sounds a lot better now. The 80s hyper-modernism of the song is brought back into sharp focus.

More Rickenbacker 4001

Chris Squire on the other hand had fewer changes of bass guitars than last time. Most of the night he was on his Rickenbacker 4001 bass.  This is most likely because most of the material played was from the era where the Rickenbacker was central to the sound. If there was one upside to the setlist, it was that there was plenty of Rickenbacker 4001 action and as you know, I like it that way.

I think his particular 4001 is a 1964 model. That thing is like 50years old now, and still going strong.

The man who described playing in Yes to be like being a trapeze artist where precision is everything, played and sang with about precision as humanly possible. That alone is always a kind of spectacle.

'Heaven And Hell Earth'

I'm not a fan of the new album that came out earlier this year. It doesn't really kick up a pulse and it doesn't really go in for prog rock ideas much; instead, it gives way to a kind of MOR/AOR vibe which frankly doesn't fit in with the rest of their oeuvre. I was going to write about it, but I was so disappointed I shelved doing the crit on this blog. It was like a moment where the band took a turn and went the other way to where you wanted them to go (which is how I feel about Peter Gabriel after 'So').

Be that as it may, as they say in mobster movies, the 2 songs from the album played live sounded great. The band certainly plays this material live with much more conviction than you hear on the album. They sounded a lot more interesting and complex - exactly the way Yes is supposed to be. I'm beginning to think that maybe the mix on the album is not representative of the music that's actually on it.

Play Any 3 Albums

It's highly unlikely but I want them to move outside of the early 70's a bit. If it's wish-casting, I'd like to hear 'Relayer', 'Drama' and 'The Ladder' in its entirety. I'd even settle for 'Tomato' or 'Open Your Eyes'. If the encore was 'Roundabout' or 'Starship Trooper' after doing that, I'd be more than totally okay with it.

Blast From The Past - 'Asia' & 'Alpha'

Dragon Ball & Pyramid

I've got myself stuck in a weird rut at home where I've been listening to Asia. What I really should be doing is writing a crit of their latest album, the just-released 'XXX', but I can't say I've got my head around it enough to write anything insightful. The problem I'm having with 'XXX' is that it all sounds like rehashes of musical ideas they exhausted in their first two albums. Thus, I've been turning over these two discs with some morbid intensity, more than any kind of nostalgia.

I hadn't really noticed this but during the GFC, the original lineup of Asia had gotten together and put out a quick couple of albums in 'Omega' and 'Phoenix', both of which I haven't managed to get my mitts upon. It'll happen - 'Omega' is already on its way from Amazon. In the mean time, of course, the only reference I have are the original two albums, and it's made for some interesting listening.

Goodness those Roger Dean covers are beautiful. They're some of his best covers.

Way back when in the ole' mists of time, when Asia first came out with their eponymous album, they had a hit single in 'Heat of the Moment'. It got tons of airplay. I dare say there are 80s nostalgia stations still whipping that track out once in a 48hour cycle of their rigid playlists. I don't know which was more surprising; the supergroup lineup or the fact that the prog rock alumni went and recorded a hit single.  After all, Steve Howe has 'Tales from Topographic Oceans' on his resume, Carl Palmer has 'Karn Evil 9' with its three impressions and  John Wetton played on some pretty long improv bits on 'Larks Tongues in Aspic' and 'Starless and Bibleblack'. A punchy little hit single for the ages?

'Alpha' quickly followed and that was just as carefully confected pop as 'Asia' was carefully confected stadium rock anthems. I remember feeling an immense amount of frustration as I listened to them that these albums were definitely lacking in long pieces with big instrumental sections. It was harder to take because I loved 'Drama' by Yes and here were Geoff Downes and Steve Howe doing pop rock. The sum total experience across both albums felt like much less than the parts and ingredients going in.

Listening to both albums today, I feel like I've grown into these songs more. It's still prog rock, but less mannered, less figurative, less abstract, and less convoluted - and I'm old enough now to handle these albums being that way. I don't need all of my music to be chicanes and break-neck changes and diabolically convoluted time signatures. I'm finding I've got a lot of time for this stuff today.

I figure that in Steve Howe's mind, Asia is an opportunity to just go out there and rock. There's no whimsy like  'Circus of Heaven' or 'Madrigal' or 'Wondrous Stories'. Instead there's John Wetton singing about resenting undeserved medals for generals and generally living a rough and tumble life where people go on secret missions and trade punches. The singing persona he sports sounds like a Steven Seagal movie character; a bit like his previous work in the band 'U.K.'.

Carl Palmer's work stands up to the test of time the most for me. He's very crisp and measured without being machine-like; it's simply tremendous playing. Geoff Downes sounds like a catalogue of 80s synth sounds but I guess that's what makes Asia so punchy and pop. It's more amusing than anything.

Anyway, I'm just putting this up in a way as to get myself to writing something about 'XXX'. By the way, I went looking for a digital image of the 'XXX' album cover and typed in 'XXX' and 'Asia' into the Google image search and I have to tell you it's pretty unsavory.

 

Yes - State Theatre 13/Apr/2012

"Yes, Yes, The Moment I See You, It's So Good To Be With You"

Prog Rock Mastodons Yes hit town for one night and played at the State Theatre. The lineup included old perennials Steve Howe, Alan White and Chris Squire, but also Geoff Downes on keyboards and new guy Jon Davison on vocals. Yes, the big surprise was that Benoit David who replaced Jon Anderson, wasn't there. Somehow Yes had managed to find another castrati in a hurry and plugged him into the rigours of singing and fronting for this immensely acrobatic music.

It's been a good decade since Yes toured Australia and last time they toured with the 'golden era' lineup that included Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson. On that occasion, they worked their way through the massive pieces like 'Ritual' and 'Awaken' as well as extended solos from Rick and Steve. I remember feeling it was great to see them but they didn't quite have the oomph as I had hoped. Part of that feeling was the impersonal space of the Empty Container Centre last time.

This recent show was a totally different kettle of fish. In every way, the State Theatre with its overwrought decor, is a far more appropriate space for this incredibly rococo kind of Rock. You can insert all the Spinal Tap jokes you like but the smaller space added a great deal of immediacy and intimacy to the music.

What Was Good About It

With Yes, it's always about the performance, so it goes without saying it was impeccable. They seemed to be having a much better time of it this time around. Steve Howe was doing more dancing around and Chris Squire being the front man seemed more relaxed.

Jon Davison is a great substitute for Anderson, Horn and now David. At moments he sounded uncannily like Jon Anderson circa 1972 on record. His voice helped wind the clock back a long way without it going to nostalgia but to a renewed, vigorous rendition of the classics.

Because of the lineup, they were free to play a slightly upbeat catalogue of songs. They played 'Tempus Fugit' off 'Drama'. I thought I'd never hear that live, but live long enough and miracles happen. It was truly a spectacle, and that was just the second song of the night. It never would have happened with Jon Anderson singing.

The other notable thing was the strength of the material off 'Fly From Here' and how much they played form the new album. It was very good to get a feel for how forward looking they were at this point in their career. They trotted out the golden oldies too, but there was a solid 30minutes of 'Fly From Here' in the show, and I think that bodes well for the band.

What Was Bad About It

'Owner of a Lonely Heart'. A horror.

I know it was their *big* hit in the 1980s, but without Trevor Rabin on guitar, it's really hard to get the full vibe of the original; but all the same Steve Howe put in such a bizzarro effort. We know he doesn't like the song, nor does he like Trevor Rabin, but the contempt was too obvious. When it got to the solo, he busted out country licks. It was a parody performance more than a proper interpretation. If Geoff Downes has to suck it up and play Rick Wakeman bits and Alan White has to play Bill Bruford bits, I don't quite get why Steve Howe can't knuckle down and learn that solo. Even I can do an approximation - It's not that hard. Surely a master guitar player like Steve Howe can do his approximation better.

Or maybe the vernacular of 80's shred is totally alien to Steve Howe.  I don't know. But I've seen it on DVD too - it is one song that Yes trot out because it was their big hit, but never seem to nail properly. That country inflected pitch-shifter leadbreak sounds ridiculous.

Also, there's always a guy who's waiting for that song at a Yes concert because that's all he knows about them. He probably got suckered into the concert on the strength of that song alone. He has to jump up when it starts. It's tragic.

What Was Interesting About It

The whole night was a kind of masterclass. There was so much to take in and to try and grok.

Chris Squire and his Rickenbacker bass were prominent as you'd expect. He seemed to be on the Rickenbacker more than he was last time in Sydney. Steve Howe also seemed to have cut a guitar or two from his constant changes. The Steinberger headless didn't make an appearance.

Because of their varied catalogue, it's always interesting what they don't play.

• They didn't play anything from the 60s before Steve Howe joined.


• They didn't play anything from 'Relayer'. Not surprising


• They didn't play anything from 'Tormato'. A little surprised they didn't do 'On The Silent Wings of Freedom'.


• They played 'Wondrous Stories', but not 'Awaken' from 'Going For The One'.


• They did not play anything from 'Tales From Topographic Oceans'. You can sort of see why.


• They didn't play 'Close To The Edge' either.


• They didn't play anything from the 90s: 'Magnification'. "The Ladder' 'Open Your Eyes' 'Keys to Ascension', 'Talk', 'Union' all got short shrift.

Then again, this could be because Jon Davison was doing only his fifth gig with Yes and his strengths were in doing the old standards. Still, the overall feeling was that Yes were still a band moving forwards playing new stuff as well as their ancient classics. Afterwards, I walked out of the theatre feeling like there was still another album in these guys.

Steve Howe And His Guitars

Steve Howe's Gibson ES 175 has a 3rd pickup in it. I don't know how long he's had it, but I was surprised to see it. On a related note, Steve Howe is a much more supple and fluid player on the ES 175 than he is on the Gibson Les Paul. He just seems to coax more out of the ES 175 than he does on the Les Paul. All the 1970s stuff sounds just like the albums coming off the ES 175.

As the material gets more modern, he seems to shift from the ES 175 to the Les Paul and then to the red Stratocaster. Much of the 'Fly From Here' material was done with the Stratocaster. I think it's interesting how the Stratocaster thing has eventually caught up with him. It's a little bit like with Pete Townshend who spent the 1970s playing on Gibsons, only to end up on a Stratocaster (a red one too) at the turn of the millennium. Howe too seems to have gravitated to the Stratocaster for both tone and playability.

The old faithful Fender pedal steel was still there, obviously to play 'And You And I' but also sections on 'Fly From Here'. The Mandolin made a couple of appearances too. The guitar tech who kept swapping instruments on cue was remarkable. At one point Steve Howe reached out mid song to get a cup of water for him - and Howe didn't miss a beat when he came back in to play.

Geoff Downes Has Serious Chops

You know he does at the back of your brain, but when you hear him do all those Wakeman parts without breaking a sweat, you realise how scary good he is. He's not showy like Wakeman, but through the nonchalance you get glimpses of a pretty stunning player. He's not playing in Yes by mistake; he's as good as any of the other keyboard players that have worked in Yes. His track record of being with The Buggles and Asia often nets him a reputation that ranks him lower than Rick Wakeman or Patrick Moraz but it's an incorrect appraisal.

Yes need to do another album with Geoff Downes.

The Best Rhythm Section In Rock

I still think it's these guys. I know there are now younger and flashier players, but Alan White and Chris Squire play such complicated stuff in lock-sync with tremendous feel. It's unlike anything else in rock. Yes, I know once upon a time there were John Paul Jones and John Bonham who always get their props and there was Moon and Entwistle, but Alan White and Chris Squire are spectacular as a duo, have been for a very long time, and are still alive to keep on doing it as well as any other time in their long careers.

My own theory why the 'Anderson Wakeman Bruford Howe' project didn't really work was because it was missing these two doing the engine room stuff. Together with Steve Howe, they are Yes.

That Rickenbacker Bass

The most notable thing about Chris Squire's Rickenbacker bass might be how small it looks on the man. It looks like about the size of a Strat on an ordinary person. And he totally monsters the thing as he plucks, picks, squeezes, throttles and bashes all kinds of tones out of it.

A lot of Yes music is possible because a big burly bear of a man can manhandle a Rickenbacker bass like it was some deep-toned ukulele. In turn, that Rickenbacker 4001 bass of his is really old school. It has the old style 'toaster' in the neck and the 'horseshoe' by the bridge. They're not the 'hi-gain' pickups of later models - It's amazing what he coaxes out of them.

Progressive Rock?
Once upon a time it might have been progressive, but there's been so much music and history under the bridge since then, it seems embarrassing to call this stuff progressive any more. It's a funny world; somebody was trying to tell me that there was such a thing as Progressive House. I kind of blinked as I tried to wrap my head around it. If Symphonic Rock was as nonsensical as saying Strawberry Bricks, then surely Progressive House is like saying deluxe turd burger.

I don't really know where music is meant to progress to, or why it necessarily has to progress anywhere. Indeed, the career of Yes might be a case in point for how not to progress. Still, issues of genre are not as interesting or valuable  as issues of qualia and quality. If anything about Yes matters, it's always going to be composition, recording and performance above all. Did rock progress as a result of Yes? Maybe in some parts. But in most parts, it degenerated with the subsequent styles.

It's hard to argue for Yes music having a shred of relevance to today's world, given that what is on radio and popular is now totally unlike even rock music itself. It's always going to be music for musicians and the discerning. There's a place for it in the world, but it's always disappointing how marginal it ends up being. The world would be better with more of this players' music, but there's not enough of a market who get it and can support it robustly.