Yes at Wallingford, Connecticut

No Yes, no holiday.

So here I am, back from touring in America with Yes on their US summer 'Album Series' tour, featuring Drama from 1980 and two side of Tales from Topographic Oceans from 1973 (Ritual and the Revealing Science of God).

Drama was a revelation on the UK tour back in May.  The disasterously brittle, punky, shallow disappointment of the Buggles era, complete with mechanoid Trevor and his robotic delivery, was suddenly transformed by Jon Davison who basically reinvented it and gave it a soul.  And lo, Drama became an album of endless delights, of beautiful notes and soaring melodies and grungy bass and sassy drumming.  Hey hey hey! Who knew...?

Here we are at the Toyota Oakdale Theatre, in Wallingford in Connecticut, the state of trees and casinos. 

Here's Steve kicking off in Machine Messiah.

Steve was a bit annoyed with the audience, with their flashlights, their i-Pads and their whooping and hollering, which interferes with his in-the-zone playing.  In fact, at one point (Leaves of Green) he got up and kicked over his footstool in anger.  He was also particularly unchuffed with his poor long-suffering guitar tech.  One of his favourite guitars had been broken and was out of commission for a couple of shows.  Maybe that was making him tetchy.

Having said all that, he then got right into it all, and did an over-twiddle-tastic Roundabout.

Here's Jon, who's ditched the kaftans and it now in nice ordinary shirts.He's having fun, and can hold a note into infinity if necessary.  Boy, can that man hold a note.

 Here's Geoff 'Finally Playing His Own Music' Downes.

'Man in a white car' sings Jon, in the strange little brief White Car.

Giving good seaweed during Tales.  Whilst Revealing was a bit ropy, Ritual had obviously got all the attention during rehearsals, and was blessed with some rather fierce smoke jet effects.

Jay was replacing Alan on the drums.  Poor old Alan was an absolute trooper to have done the UK/Europe leg of the tour, despite being in so much back pain.  Jay did a sterling job, busily counting throughout and playing with some lovely light touches and attention to detail, although his hair did prove to be rather distracting.

Oh look.  It's the Holy Trinity themselves, the 'true Yes' (their words, not mine) who'll be round in a couple of months.   

It's currently $750 for a front row seat here to see them, $650 second row etc.  Back home, it's over £300, and I don't know anyone who's bought one. At this rate, ARW will be staring from the stage into the dark uninhabited abyss, with what audience there is lined up against the back wall.

Wonder how many they sold here?

Anyway, not many photos here - but have a look at my other Yes blogs - Westbury Long Island and Staten Island.

Yes at the Royal Albert Hall, 10th May 2016

It's always a fine day when you are going to see Yes that evening at the Royal Albert Hall.

Here's Jon, looking a little tired, in a kaftan which unfortunately more than adequately covered his midriff.

  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.

Steve Howe.  You'll have to forgive the blurry photos of Steve - they're from the sixth row Billy's side, with my little Olympus camera.

Billy Sherwood chose to wear tails, in a change from the black draped coat he had been wearing for the previous 9 dates.  

(The coat had suffered a wardrobe malfunction during a swift bass change in Birmingham, meaning that a large portion of the Sherwood midriff was on mesmerising display right in front of me, including, it has to be said,  Mr Sherwood's billy button.)

Having seen the first shows with Billy last year in America, he is now much, much more relaxed.  Then, he obviously had to tread an extremely fine line with regards to Chris's legacy, and he did a wonderful job under the difficult circumstances and expectations of the fans.  Even in Glasgow, the first date of the tour here, he cried after The Fish because of the pressure and the overwhelming, positive reaction of the crowd.

 However now he is playing as part of a group of musicians who are clearly enjoying themselves, and who, for the first time in years, have picked up the tempo and are really rocking. I wasn't looking forward to Drama ten times on the tour, but this line up have given it substance, emotion, and a rip-roaring delivery.

   Here's a change of outfit too for always-too-low-in-the-mix Geoff as well, but he kept the silver sparkly scarf. The whole ensemble was a much better sartorial choice for the low-crotched one than the creased turquoise number he'd been wearing for the previous 9 shows.

 

Geoff came out from behind his keyboards to read a special introduction to his fellow Buggle, Trevor Horn, who was to be guest singer on Tempus Fugit.

Geoff isn't a natural orator, so it was rather sweet that he had his notes with him.

Hear Geoff's announcement and the Royal Albert Hall Tempus Fugit HERE.

Yikes.  It's Trevor.  Buggles glasses alert.

I 

"It's been 36 years, maybe some of you have forgiven me by now", Mr Horn had said at the Oxford show the previous night, thus addressing all those still scarred from experiencing his 1980 Drama tour, when his voice had cracked, and the universe as we knew it was rent asunder.

"Screeeeeeeeeeeeeech!!!" 

Jon hung about, kept his head down, and shook a tambourine at the back of the stage. 

Fortunate that he did.  For Mr Horn does not have the range to reach the notes at the end of the song, and Jon had to step in and help him out.

Trevor.  We remember the Glasgow Apollo in December 1980.  And we do not forgive. 

They played a beautiful, mellifluous version of Time and a Word, sung as a tribute to Peter Banks.  The album artwork is in the background.

Billy was cranked up far too loud, but he was enjoying himself hugely.

Incidentally, Roger Dean, who designed the Yes logo, was in the audience in Brighton on Saturday. 

The second half of the set was the whole of Fragile, the 1971 album more suited to Jon's emotive voice.  Because of the one-off support from Moon Safari, the Albert Hall gig had Yes playing Drama and then Fragile with no interval between.   

There had been a number of car crashes in Sheffield a few days earlier, not only Five Per Cent for Nothing (where Jon doesn't sing, so he had time to do a little wormy dance behind Alan's drum riser), but also a truly jaw-droppingly catastrophic We Have Heaven.  However, all went well at the Royal Albert Hall, thanks to a super-strict, eagle-eyed Steve, The Man in Charge

Lovely, lovely, under-rated Geoff, the guy who just gets on with it.

Billy Sherwood, enjoying himself perhaps just a little too much. He's a wonderful guy, interacting with the crowd, but as a result he does just tend to lose that little bit of focus (much to Steve's frustration).

 They also played, for the first time on the tour, Soon.  It was quite a moment, until it all started to fall apart in an under-rehearsed way at the end.

Twaaaaaaaaaaaaang!!!!!!!

And then it was all done.  The last note was played.  The lights came back on.  The UK tour was over.  

Back out of the rabbit hole again, until next time. 

Hey hey hey.

Hear and see the whole Drama set at the Royal Albert Hall on Youtube HERE. 

See my other photos of some of the gigs on the tour here - 
 Brighton
Birmingham
Liverpool