Chris Squire's bass centre stage as 'Onward' is played. It's an emotional tribute which opens the show.
Jon Davison, singing 'Machine Messiah'. Jon gives a much more nuanced, fluid and emotional delivery to Drama than the brittle, staccato, punky superficiality of Trevor Horn's original 1980 recording, which, to be fair, very much reflected the time in which it was made.
Thirty six years later, Jon is only reinterpreting the album by giving it a warmth that it previously lacked (no mean feat faced with lyrics that are a pile of twaddle), but the rebooted tempo that Billy Sherwood brings has cranked up the power and urgency of the piece. Not only does this bring Drama to the notice of a new generation of listeners, but enables old fans to finally make peace with an album that was yanked off the turntable years ago and thrown away into a corner in disgust.
Geoff Downes, playing his own music at last.
Billy Sherwood, relaxing into the role and really enjoying himself.
The rarely spotted Alan White, who's upped the tempo on this tour. Hold on, Alan!!
Steve Howe, man in charge.
Steve, possibly a little behind, possibly just over-twiddling a bit.
Big hands.
Twaaaaaang!!!!!!
I again had a photo pass for this show, and the set up of the stage meant I was able to move around and take a better variety of shots. All of these are taken with a teeny-weeny Olympus SZ-31MR.
