Last night 11/18/2008 I had the pleasure of attending my second Yes concert in a week. The first was in Hershey PA last Tuesday. Last night’s was in Reading PA. Both were in small intimate venues and both were enjoyable, although one more than the other.
I became a fan of Yes in the early 1970’s. Although I was a small child at the time I had an older sister who had a pretty large collection of records. She mostly was into Elton John and Loggins and Messina, groups like that. But she had a few gems in her collection that I really got into. When I was about 10 my parents got me my own turntable, and my sister gave me a few of the records in her collection that she did not care for, one was Fragile and the other was Close to the Edge. I have always had eclectic tastes in music and I enjoy classical, jazz and various other forms, but something about those two albums sucked me in. First off the musicianship is first rate. Each of the many people who have been in the band at various times over the years is a master of his craft. Their albums were willing to take chances and in the days of 3 minute hits, they were producing songs that were close to 20 minutes long, and they were excellent.

Only one member of Yes has been in all of the various manifestations of the group, that man is Chris Squire. He is a beast of a man, very tall and as the years have gone on he has added to his considerable girth. He plays the bass guitar in a very different way from most. He spends most of his time in the upper registers and often plays counter melodies as opposed to traditional bass lines. He make the Bass look small. He also adds years of choir experience to the band as he spent much of his youth in a boy’s choir. His voice is one of the key sounds that define Yes. He has not lost much of his singing talent even though he is 60 years old.



Second longest and on hand last night is Steve Howe. Steve is an incredible guitar player who seemed to really be on fire last night. Many of their longer songs were extended last night to allow Steve to jam a little longer in solo areas. Steve has the reputation of being a prima dona and will even chastise an audience at times. Last night he started a solo piece and someone shouted “Steve Howe is Awesome!” He was at a natural pause and he stopped and scratched his head with his middle finger. Earlier as he was telling a story a woman screamed randomly while he was talking and he said “Look, let me finish and then you can scream!”. Done with humor but he has been known to hate what he calls “Social terrorism” that some can display. Last night had some, last week there was none in Hershey.


Alan White is the drumming backbone of the band. His talents are often understated but he is a rock that the band needs. Alan joined up with Yes in the early 70’s after the departure of Bill Bruford, the bands founding drummer. Bruford has a “jazzy” style of play whereas Alan White has always been a more straight forward rock drummer. The drumming on both nights was wonderful and he was given a small solo during one of the older songs in the first set.

Jon Anderson has been the singer for Yes on all but 1 album made in 1980. That album was Drama, since returning to the band Jon has steadfastly refused to sing any material from Drama. Over the summer Yes fans learned that Jon was sick with Respiratory failure. Sounds bad. The doctors told him to take a break from singing for 6 months to a year. The band had scheduled the “Close to the Edge and Back” tour for the summer but had to cancel due to Jon’s illness. After a break of a few months the three above members decided to put this tour together and found a replacement singer. His name is Benoit David (Ben-Wah Dav eed) and he was a member of a Yes tribute band. Chris Squire had seen his singing on the internet and got in touch with him about doing the tour. He sounds a lot like Jon Anderson. Enough so that in a live concert with your eyes closed you would swear that Jon is up on stage, but a younger Jon. I was very impressed with his singing and while he did hit a couple of clunkers they were few and far between and he did a great job with a few of the more demanding pieces. Of course they did do a couple of Drama songs which really got me excited. Drama is my second favorite Yes album and I had seen the concert tour way back in 1980 for it, Trevor Horn was not the best concert singer. Benoit is the real deal. I wish Jon speedy recovery and hope he is able to rejoin the band down the road, but if he is not Benoit is Ok with me.



Keyboards have been the highest turnover position in the band. They have had many keyboard players and some have be in, then out then in again. Rick Wakeman while not the original keyboard player was and is the most iconic. Long blond hair and cape playing like a wizard. The man is scary good. And so is his son Oliver Wakeman. Rick also has had some health issues of late which made touring impossible so his son Oliver was tapped for the duty. He has done a very good job of it.
So the shows: I am trying to limit spoilers here so I will not go into details of song titles, but you might be able to figure a few out. If you do not want to know more, stop reading now.

The show opens to the strains of the Firebird Suite and goes into an old standard from Close to the Edge. In both shows it was done very well, but had some issues with vocals at the end at Hershey, it was perfect at Reading. The lights are subdued but do add to the feel of the show. There is a little Roger Dean designed overhead kite type thing that adds another dimension especially when it has lights and images projected onto it from below.
The first set was shortened between Hershey and Reading, but the song that was removed actually wasn’t so good at Hershey and so therefore I felt it was OK for it to be missing. One of the problems that I perceived at Hershey were that many of the sampled sounds were being triggered at the wrong time, once during the wrong song. Also the keys were so far down in the mix that it was difficult to hear those parts. This was fixed for Reading I did not hear any trigger errors and the keys were right there and easy to hear. Some people have complained that lead vocals have been hard to hear, but at both shows I had no issues, and wondered if it was a matter of their seating.
I had great tickets for both shows on the floor only a few rows from the stage. The music was loud, but when I got home my ears were not ringing like they would have been at past shows.
All in all it was a wonderful two nights of music. If you get a chance to see them, do it before it’s too late!