Last night I was able to go see Yes featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman in an outdoor theatre on a nearly perfect night. Joining those three were drummer Lou Molino 3rd and bassist Lee Pomeroy.
Jon Anderson, at 72, is still in fine voice. His voice hasn't seemed to change at all over the years. He's still a great singer. Although he does have a bit of lead singers disease. The band came out in three waves. First Molino and Pomeroy came out, then Rabin and Wakeman came out and a bit later Jon Anderson came out. But he positively called out his band mates multiple times and didn't try to hog the limelight.
Rabin, at a spry 63, is still a great guitarist. He's also part of Yes' great harmonies. Rick Wakeman, at age 68, came out in a robe, honestly which seems a bit odd. He's still a great keyboardist. He was busy switching between multiple keyboards and even played a key-tar for a bit. Both are very talented musicians, as are Molino and Pomeroy.
Great things about seeing them in concert, excellent musicianship, good songs, great harmonies- one of the best thing about a Yes concert- and they have a great camaraderie.
The only thing I wasn't a big fan of is that Yes is very much a jam band. They played right about two hours and only played 12 songs. But when they played just the actual song, they rocked and were fantastic. I wish they would have eliminated about a half-hour of jamming. In that space they could have played "Leave It", "It Can Happen", "Long Distance Runaround", "Changes" and "Love Will Find A Way". As is it was a solid concert, but limiting the jamming would have made it a fantastic concert. Again the musicianship was excellent, the extended jamming isn't my favorite thing.
Jon Anderson wisdom of the night: "Love is the best religion". (I see his point, but I think love is the foundation for any successful religion.)
The following songs were the biggest highlights:
"Hold On":
"Lift Me Up" was great and the sound is at least 10 times better than on this video:
"Rhythm of Love":
This song starts out with a jam, which is fine. Then when they get into the song, it's amazing. Sadly an extended jam was tacked on. Still an amazing song, but the jamming diminishes it's power a bit. "Owner of A Lonely Heart":
After the briefest of intermissions they came back on and played this encore, they played the song straight up and it was a perfect ending to the concert.
Again the live sound is so much better than this video indicates. "Roundabout":
themusicaddict
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