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Review: Yes, Colston Hall
The great Yes soap opera has been rumbling along for half a century now, and if you’re foolhardy enough to venture onto social media you’ll find lots of people shouting at one another angrily about the legitimacy of the current line-up. Of the six musicians on stage tonight, just two played on the original recordings featured. And drummer Alan White, who’s had health problems of late, only joins the band for the last half of the final (epic) song, along with the encore. Messrs. Wakeman and Anderson, meanwhile, are off doing their own thing with 90125-era guitarist Trevor Rabin. All the non-partisan reviewer can do in such circumstances is to forget all the bickering and form a judgment based on the performance. And on the evidence of the first night of the UK leg of the band’s 50th anniversary tour, this incarnation of Yes is on magnificent form.
Sure, Geoff Downes isn’t Rick Wakeman and doesn’t wear a cape, but he does sport a pair of leopard print trousers that are a brave sartorial choice for a man of his advancing years. More importantly, he’s quite at ease with a set that comprises some of the band’s most challenging material.
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Billy Sherwood was the late Chris Squire’s own choice of replacement and is a respectful player who has no difficulty emulating his predecessor’s distinctive gut-punching bass, while discreetly putting his own stamp on the songs. Long-term Yes associate Jay Schellen’s hard rock background helps to give the drums an extra kick.
And high-pitched vocalist Jon Davison – who gets most of the flak simply for not being Jon Anderson – may lack those flat Lancashire vowels on account of being American, but sings beautifully throughout.
As the band’s de facto leader, the increasingly professorial Steve Howe showcases his funny little hopping and skipping dance, shoots sharp looks over the top of his spectacles whenever something displeases him, and plays like an absolute demon. It’s hard to take your eyes off him as he switches between multiple styles on different guitars, frequently within a single song.
After a burst of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, they open with the crowd-pleasingly familiar Yours Is No Disgrace and I’ve Seen All Good People, with animated matching album cover art spanned across three giant digital screens behind the performers. Howe promises that they’ll be dipping into material from across their 50 year career, but in fact they limit themselves to their first decade. Still, it’s a well-judged opening set, poppier material from both ends of the self-imposed timeline (Sweet Dreams from 1970’s Time and a Word album and unlikely punk-era chart hit Wondrous Stories) rubbing shoulders with the pure thrilling prog of South Side of the Sky and a very welcome Parallels from Going for the One. Howe’s note-perfect Mood for a Day acoustic showcase is a joy to behold, while Chris Squire’s Onward from the otherwise mostly rotten Tormato album makes a powerful, non-lachrymose tribute to the late bassist. It’s back to the classics for set-closer And You and I, with an interval before what is for many of us the main event.
Wouldn’t it be fun to get a time machine and transport an authentically expectorating ‘year zero’ punk rocker to 2018 to find that not only are Yes playing a 50th anniversary tour to sell-out crowds but also reviving the album that came to epitomise everything the punks despised? Yep, history records that 1973’s Tales From Topographic Oceans was the first Yes album to top the UK album charts, but it also became lazy critical shorthand for prog pretension and over-indulgence that deserved to be swept away by the two-chord bashers. Consequently, those of us who were too young at the time have never had the chance to hear it performed live. Modern-day Prog God Steven Wilson’s superb surround sound remix made the case for re-assessment and introduced this much-maligned double album to a new audience. So finally, Yes are playing it live again. Or, more accurately, around 60% of it.
In truth, even its most ardent fans would admit that Topographic Oceans isn’t without its longueurs. But side one, The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn), is as accessible a piece of music as Yes have ever recorded, packed with musical ideas and brimming with great melodies. They skip side two and go straight to the calm acoustic section of the frantic The Ancient (Giants Under the Sun) – anyone seeking proof of Yes’s out-there, high-wire experimentalism should look no further than these 20 minutes. Arguably, the entire evening’s highlight, it’s performed mesmerisingly by Howe and Davison, with harmony vocals by Sherwood. The euphoric Ritual (Nous Sommes du Soleil) closes the show as it does the album, bringing the audience to their feet for rapturous ovation. Yes could have stopped right there as we cross this off our bucket lists, but return for the predictable if always welcome Roundabout and Starship Trooper. Here’s looking forward to the, erm, 51st anniversary tour.
All photos by Mike Evans
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