Concert Review: YES at the Beacon Theater, 31 October 1997
by Deb Wunder
1997 or 1977? For a few moments, once the band started playing, it was hard to tell...
I honestly had not planned to see this show, but two days beforehand, I got a call from two friends informing me that my ticket would be waiting at the door. Since one of these friends was only in New York to promote a poetry book that she had written and Jon Anderson had done the art for, I didn't feel I could refuse. This turned out to be a Smart Move.
Yes was in marvelous form, playing an almost three hour set of material from just about every lineup the band has had.
Of course, the audience was a show in itself. A bit over one third was in serious Halloween costumes, everything from "rockstar drag" to various forms of wildlife and aliens.
Pat St. John and Dave Herman came out first, to introduce the WNEW-FM air staff. This provided almost the only discordant notes in the evening, since when Harris Allen said "and now for the woman who rules nighttime radio," more than a few voices yelled out "Alison Steele isn't around anymore" and suchlike. Okay, so he meant Carol Miller. It was nice to see that a number of us knew who really ruled the night air. There were also a few cries of "Where's Scelsa?" at the end of the lineup. You could just tell that this was a New York audience....
Yes opened with a rousing version of "Rhythm of Love," from their so-called 'YesWest' incarnation Ñ followed by "Siberian Khatru," from Close to the Edge. (At this point, I remembered why I dislike the Beacon as a venue: the sound tends to bounce around, no matter how good a group's crew is. On the other hand, the band [Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Alan White, Igor Koroshev, and Billy Sherwood] were in as fine a voice as ever.) This was followed by "America" [which Anderson claimed that Alan White refused to do the tour unless they played], their new single "Open Your Eyes," "And You And I," and "Heart of the Sunrise."
Having kicked a bit of butt, their next move was to leave the stage -- all but Steve Howe, that is. Howe played two solo numbers from his Ïuvre, then swung into what is, perhaps, his most famous (and most often misnamed) piece, "Clap." After that, much to the delight of the audience, Jon rejoined Steve onstage for a duet on "Leaves of Green" [not the Paul Simon song, but a section of "The Ancient" from Tales of Topographic Oceans].
This heralded what could be largely regarded as the "solos" section of the evening. The next song was also a new one, "Children of Light," followed by Koroshev's keyboard solo, then "Long Distance Runaround," then the Squire/White solos [labeled "WhiteFish" as of the 9012Live - the Solos album]. Igor was fun! He plays as well as any keyboard man Yes has ever had, but is different enough that he might, in time, quell the fan war over who the best Yes keyboardist is. Chris Squire and Alan White were clearly having as much fun as any of the fans were. Squire was all over the stage, and in fine form both vocally and instrumentally. Alan, though situated behind his kit, was clearly in the spirit of a fine New York Halloween evening [in fact, he came out wearing a Halloween mask with three heads - Moe, Larry and Curly]! A fragment of "Into the Lens" from Drama, the one Yes album that Anderson was not a part of, followed. Next up was "Owner of a Lonely Heart."
Anderson then motioned the audience to be quiet, and the first notes of "Soon" [from Relayer] rang out. His voice, though still needing lots of echo to get timbre, is in amazing shape for a rock and roller who has been singing for over 30 years. Still an ethereal alto, he hits all the notes as well as he ever did. After "Soon," was the real treat of the evening -- at least for some of us older fans -- Yes played "The Ancient" [from Tales of Topographic Oceans] in its entirety! This was the only discordant note for me, in that I felt Billy Sherwood's voice just sounded wrong here.
Yes then moved to end the gig on a high note -- they moved right into "I've Seen All Good People," which contains the lovely "Your Move," as well as "All Good People." Of course, they were called back to the stage for an encore. They did two songs for that, "Roundabout" and "Starship Trooper."
It was really good to see Yes, and to see that they are doing new stuff, as well as continuing to play the stuff I came of age listening to. Yes has claimed in recent years that it plans to be around to take us into the next century. I really hope they do so.