An interview with Mars Hollow

Mars Hollow's eponymous debut album made many people's top ten prog rock releases of 2010, but my own radioactive Yes fan senses started tingling when they announced that Billy Sherwood would be producing their second album, The World in Front of Me. Released 2011, the album has again brought the band critical acclaim and they have since continued the relationship with Sherwood, opening for CIRCA: live in September and October 2011.

The band have recently been highlighted by Classic Rock Presents… Prog as an upcoming band. This year, they plan to release their first DVD, "Live at RoSFest 2011" (preview available here), are playing further dates and are working towards a third album.

The band consists of John Baker (guitar, lead vocals), Kerry Chicoine (bass, lead vocals), Jerry Beller (drums, vocals) and Steve Mauk (keyboards, vocals). Kerry, a regular at ProgressiveEars.com, kindly organised the following interview with the band in October 2011.

You've each had bands before Mars Hollow, often far from the progressive rock sound of Mars Hollow. [You can read the band members’ biographies on their website here.] So what was the impetus for Mars Hollow, for this sound, at this point in your careers?    

Jerry Beller: I have been in Prog rock bands or projects before but for certain parts of my career I decided to do Hard Rock or Metal or Fusion... I have always loved Prog and I got the right three other guys together when I formed this band and the time was right... and since I just got off of a project that I was doing with Ryo Okumoto I thought that it would be great to get a Progressive project together and see what happens.

Kerry Chicoine: For me, personally, ever since I heard Mike Keneally's music – in the year 2000AD – my mind has been reaching for something beyond the standard power-pop stuff I love so much. I still love a good pop song but as I've gotten older and been exposed to more detail-oriented music, naturally I've been drawn towards more unconventional song structures. Having spent some time playing prog-rock alongside Jerry Beller in Ryo Okumoto's band, I knew I'd found a rhythmic soul-mate so when Ryo's project folded, it was only natural Jerry and I get something going. In a nutshell, Mars Hollow is the result.

John Baker: After a long succession of my own bands I was looking for some situation where I could just write and play without the sole leadership responsibility. At first I sought out bands that needed some "colorful" guitar playing and backing vocals. I saw a prog ad and thought "why not try that again" revisit my youth and so forth. When I thought about it, I realized prog, especially symphonic prog had all the aspects of what I was looking for.

Steve Mauk: I have always loved progressive rock and my first band was playing crazy complex prog back in the 70's. As that genre fell out of popularity I got sidetracked and wrote and played pop and rock for years and years. But I often felt unchallenged, and started wondering what it would be like to play that kind of music again. When I saw a classified ad looking for a progressive rock keyboard player I got really exciting thinking about the possibilities. That situation did not pan out, but right after I saw Jerry's ad and that led to the foundation of Mars Hollow.

Kerry and Jerry, you two had a spell together in Endless Enigma, an ELP tribute band. There is occasionally some scepticism about former tribute band members among fans, with controversial examples like Benoît David joining Yes, and Arnel Pineda in Journey. You've also got Johnny Bruhns and Scott Connor in CIRCA: both coming from tribute bands. How does the experience in Endless Enigma impact on your playing today?

Kerry: While I've never really been interested in playing in a tribute band, when the Endless Enigma opportunity arose I was compelled to take it because ELP are my all-time favorite band, ever. I looked at it as a challenge – I was singing as well as playing bass, lead guitar and synth pedals. Plus, I loved the music and I wanted to really learn that stuff – it's a blast to play. I guess the experience impacted my playing by having to learn all of that complicated material – it made me a better musician having learned some of their classic pieces, and helped me gain some insight as to Greg Lake's amazing bass playing as well as Keith Emerson's fantastic sense of composition. I really love ELP and I'm sorry Endless Enigma didn't work out; here's a video of us performing "KarnEvil 9 First Impression Part Two".

Jerry: The ELP tribute was just a side project for me. I have always played in original bands and thought that it would be a fitting Tribute to my Prog Heroes but it was not something that I did on a regular basis and that project was on and off anyway. Also my influences were from those early prog drummers like Carl Palmer but he is not the only one... Barrymore Barlow, Neil Peart, Alan White, Mike Portnoy, Curt Cress, Bill Bruford and so on... so it did not effect the way I play in this band just doing what I normally do.

Your debut album was produced by Ronan Chris Murphy. Can you tell me what it was like working with him?

Kerry: I met Ronan at a party at least 10 years ago and we kept in touch. When Mars Hollow recorded some early demos, I sent them to Ronan and he was agreeable to helping us with our first album. We knew he'd worked with guys like Mike Keneally, Terry Bozzio, Tony Levin, Robert Fripp, Willie Otero – monster chops kinda guys – so we thought he'd be a cool producer. We feel very lucky to have had him on our team.

The guy was great to work with – easy going, great ideas for editing songs, an awesome engineer/technician, you name it. He really blew us away with his mixes; the guy has fantastic ears and his mixes are integral to how the songs ended up coming across. If anyone out there reading this is looking for a great producer, definitely contact Ronan.

Jerry: Very relaxed and he did a great job on that first CD it had a great 70's vibe to it. Very cool and a great guy. Also had some great production ideas. Very mellow guy to work with. Nothing but praise to Ronan.

John: He made a few pre-production suggestions based on hearing us at rehearsal and proceeded to capture the vibe of our live thing quite well. I recorded almost all the guitars myself and I know he wishes I hadn't. When he mixed, I know I put him through a whole lot more work than he is used to – so, sorry Ronan. I learned something from Ronan at every step of the process.

Steve: I really enjoyed working with Ronan. He has a fantastic ear and a great enthusiasm for songwriting and recording. He gave us excellent preproduction notes before recording in terms of some of the song structures and arrangements that I think made the record that much better. He also set a very supportive, relaxing vibe in his studio which helped bring out our best performance.

And you decided to work with Billy Sherwood on your latest album. What brought you to Sherwood?

Kerry: I liked the glossy, high-tech sound of the first two CIRCA: albums and thought it would be cool to work with someone of Billy’s stature, so I wrote him via MySpace and he responded immediately. We met the guy, hit it off on a personal level, and then we went off to write the second album and didn’t see him for a year LOL.

Jerry: Well Kerry had some internet conversations with Billy in the past so that was part of the connection, then we posted a video of one of our shows about two years ago and Billy saw it and sends us an e-mail stating that he was interested in working with us and we took him up on his offer. Very cool person to work with. Great production came from the sessions and the CD came off very powerful which is what I wanted on this CD.

John: We were simply exploring the variety out there. We thought "we already made the first record, let's have something different". Kerry lobbied for Billy and we agreed. The amazing thing is that Billy also agreed. I realize now that Billy loves to work with as many bands as time will allow. It doesn't matter to him about the musician's status level.

How would World in Front of Me have sounded differently without Sherwood? What did he bring to the album? 

John: The biggest thing he brought was that the drums sounded bigger and the record as a whole sounded wetter and less analog. Listeners will decide for themselves whether or not they like those differences.

Kerry: Billy is known for creating a certain sound and that's exactly what we wanted for the second album. If anyone else had produced it, it would've sounded nothing like what Billy achieved. Billy definitely has his own thing goin' on and that confidence is one of the things that drew us to him. He knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. That said, Billy definitely took our input very seriously and he truly worked with us so that in the end, we all created the album as one.

Unlike Ronan – who made actual songwriting suggestions here and there – Billy pretty much left the songwriting to us; his main role was in capturing the band performing (the album was largely recorded live), making suggestions for guitar and keyboard patches, making melodic suggestions occasionally, and dialing in a cool bass sound. For the bass, all I said to Billy was, "Plug me into whatever you plug yourself into and work your magic!" He's already got his DW drum kit mic'd up so we knew we'd start laying down tracks FAST.

Sure enough, we finished the basic tracking in five evenings. Billy works so fast and with so much energy; we'd think "That was a bad take" but Billy would say, "No way, check it out, it's awesome!" and sure enough he was right 99.9% of the time.

After the basics were done at Billy's we went off and did some overdubs then turned it all over to Billy for mixing. He did a fantastic job building the mixes from the ground up and we were all smiling when we heard his final versions.

Mars Hollow have only played a fairly small number of concerts. What's the reality of securing live dates for a band like yourselves?

Kerry: We just played our 13th gig – lucky 13! Our first gig ever was in November of 2008, so we've managed to play out about every four months since then, which isn't too bad a schedule all things considered. We've been lucky in that we've been asked to play RoSFest, ProgDay and Mexicali Prog (3 times) so these higher-profile type gigs have definitely helped raise awareness.

Honestly, we can pretty much play Los Angeles any time we like – as long as it's not a Friday or Saturday night LOL. It's like a cattle-call out here and most bands have no problems finding gigs at 10:30PM on a weeknight.

However, we made a conscious decision at the outset that we weren't going to play LA-area gigs on weeknights – it's just too difficult to get people to come out. So we pick and choose our local dates and continue seeking out festivals and other out-of-area opportunities, such as playing Corona thanks to Billy Sherwood and CIRCA:.

We've got some things in the pipeline – preliminary plans if you will – for some touring in 2012 so hopefully we'll at least get another chance to play internationally and also do a string of gigs in the Northeast USA; we'd also love to partner with a couple LA-area bands and do a proper West Coast USA tour. We're always on the prowl for gig opportunities outside of LA.

John: You gotta ask for the opportunity. Don't wait for an invitation without some prompting of your own. We don't have a manager so it's "every band for himself". A bit of aggression is necessary from the bands. We play most of our shows well outside of our home state of California, so travel expenses are the biggest consideration. Shipping gear is a really big hassle and expense and you have to be as prepared as possible to use unfamiliar equipment to produce familiar sounds.

Jerry: Yes, we would like to play more concerts and it is possible. Just need to get in the right situation. Also this type of music is something I think more people would enjoy and should have more media exposure. I think more people would get into it if they know it was around... There is more for your money from this music: it is not just a 3 minute Pop song and I am not bashing Pop. Look, The Beatles had a prog album and their last record had a prog style side to it with songs running into each other. So I think that prog can get big just like all the other types of music that seam to come back around again and again.

Your debut received great reviews, you were heralded as the 'new Spock's Beard' or the 'new Marillion'. So you have these expectations upon you from the prog community. Yet at the same time, receiving more widespread attention beyond prog fans is difficult. How do you feel about how you've been received?

Kerry: "Blown away" pretty much describes how I feel LOL. We've been lucky in that the prog community has largely embraced us as a presence to be acknowledged – those fans are very, very discriminating so to be generally accepted within the community is a huge accomplishment. We're very lucky and very gratified at the reception, please believe.

Honestly, we never set out to win over the prog community; our music – as proggy as it gets sometimes – is, at its core, melodic rock. It's accessible, it's catchy, it's "poppy" for lack of a better word. We make a point to have at least a couple of accessible songs on our albums not because we're "selling out" for a hit single, but because we all love good songs and it breaks up the flow of the longer, proggier pieces.

Although we're very happy with where we've taken the band thus far, we feel there's still a chance (however slim) we might cross-over into the classic rock world, or the melodic rock world, whatever the kids are calling it these days. That's been the goal all along; we feel our music crosses boundaries a lot of "prog" bands might go at lengths to avoid but the point of this whole enterprise is writing good rock songs, and the goal is to get those songs heard.

John: We could not have asked for a better reception from the prog community. Whether any "purist" prog fan wants to admit it or not I'm convinced that we are well received due to a good amount of melodic accessibility. In my opinion, that's the single biggest reason why the pioneers of the progressive rock genre were popular. We cross over into mainstream rock a bit so it's reasonable to think we have a better chance of being accepted outside of prog, but that remains to be seen.

Steve: Incredibly gratified by the response we have received. It has inspired me to really work harder with my sounds and songwriting. When you know there is an audience that appreciates what you are doing, it makes you want to do it better.

Jerry: Greatly received and great reviews all around, oh and by the way we have a lot of fans that are not big Prog fans, but like what they hear due to the Pop that we infuse with the PROG. When we started this project we all decided to infuse Prog with Pop so that we could turn more fans on to this style of music and even though the second CD was a little more intense it still has the POP element in it... just wanted to turn as many people on to PROG as possible. As I said in one of the other questions, PROG is not a criminal on an island somewhere, it is a style of music that is there to enjoy... A lot of fans still go to the big prog shows like Yes, Rush, Genesis, but need to know about the new bands of Prog... that's what needs to happen.

You have your own sound, but your music also harks back to ELP, Yes, Rush and other big name prog bands. How do you balance these influences? For example, I've described the end of "Midnight" [on debut album, Mars Hollow] as sounding like Keith Emerson soloing over Chris Squire. Is that a comment that makes you happy to be compared to the greats, or frustrated that you're being compared to them? 

Kerry: I'm very flattered whenever I hear comparisons between Mars Hollow and the classic bands of the '70s – we all grew up on that music and, face it, the stuff was pretty amazing and we're all heavily influenced by that golden era. Comparisons are inevitable because we're plowing the same fertile fields as the old school guys – long-form rock songwriting mixed with a bit of accessible melodic pop to keep things interesting and fun. We have the advantage of building on that which came before, while the classic bands were really breaking new ground and sowing the seeds for guys like us. We owe them all a huge debt of gratitude for setting the stage.

I personally don't consider the balancing of our influences; we never say, "Ok, that's enough of a Yes vibe, let's move into Gentle Giant territory now", you know? We just write what we write, and we're ruthless editors – our primary goal is to keep the songs moving.

Jerry: It does not make me frustrated. Yes, the influences are there but we don't approach a part like – oh, let's put a Keith Emerson solo part with a Geddy Lee bass line in there. I guess that it is our heroes that are in us, so a little of that comes out... but it is not something that we do on purpose. We try to make everything sound like us... I would rather like being compared to a great player, that makes me feel that all of those years of hard work paid off.

John: It's never frustrating to be compared with the greats. Keith Emerson and Chris Squire were also influenced by their musical greats and I'm pretty sure they were not frustrated if they were ever compared to them. The pattern of influence goes back for as long as people have been making music.

Progressive rock lyrics in the 1970s varied between New Age influences on the one hand and a technophile/science fiction on the other. Musicologist Edward Macan talks about prog as having Apollonian lyrics (philosophical, optimistic, utopian) as opposed to the Dionysian lyrics of heavy metal (primordial, of the senses, ecstatic). Prog in the 21st century is a different affair. Mars Hollow's lyrics are often quite dark, with references to failed relationships. Do you see your lyrics as being 'progressive' as well? Is there a common theme to them?

Kerry: John is the primary lyricist for the band; he's written lyrics for all but two songs. The two songs I wrote lyrics for – "Dawn of Creation" and "In Your Hands" – I was definitely going for a proggy vibe. "Dawn" is spacey and laced with astronomical references, and with "Hands" I was going for a Neal Morse Spock's-era "is it religious or not?" kind of vague spirituality thing. In reality "Hands" is more of a slam on the GW Bush administration LOL – it's actually pretty sarcastic.

Steve: I've always felt that good lyrics are ones that move you emotionally, whatever the genre. John has a definite talent for delivering insightful, soul probing concepts and I think that is one of the strengths of this band that has set us apart.

John: Our lyrics are introspective allegory, based on the human conditions of despair and happiness, longing and fulfillment; not on science fiction or legendary books about wizardry or trolls, etc. That's just the way we do it. It goes along with the fact that we don't have album covers that feature science fantasy artwork. Nothing against any of that, but it's just not for us.

Thanks to the band for agreeing to the interview. Thanks also to 10T Records for copies of the band’s two albums: I heartily recommend both.

Next Yes album "sooner rather than later"

In a new Billboard interview, Squire talks about making the next Yes studio album "sooner rather than later" and there are unconfirmed rumours on Yesfans.com of a specific timeline leading up to a spring/summer 2013 release. Yet there has been a certain scepticism among Yes fans about how quickly Yes might produce a follow-up to Fly from Here. I suggest this comes from two sources.

First, critics of the David-fronted band basically question this Yes's viability as recording artists. They struggle to believe that this band is capable of making an album and/or that anyone would want to release such a thing. However, such critics confuse what they want with what is likely to happen. However many fans were undoubtedly lost when Anderson was left behind, Fly from Here sold well and Frontiers want more.

I have more sympathy for the second reason for scepticism, those who look at recent history. It took ten years to produce Fly from Here, some way, so it will probably take ten years before we get the next album. However, I would argue that we have to consider why there was a ten year delay.

Much of that delay, in the post-Magnification period, was due to the tensions between Anderson/Wakeman and Howe/Squire/White. Those tensions are now outside the band. Throughout that post-Magnification period, Howe/Squire/White appeared keen to continue the traditional record/tour/record/tour cycle, so it should be no surprise to see them return to that model.

Critics of the current line-up sometimes characterise them as ruthlessly and recklessly rushing into a Yes without Anderson, but actually I think a chunk of the delay in producing Fly from Here was because of Howe/Squire/White's tentativeness in moving ahead without Anderson. They spent years before taking the plunge and deliberately didn't rush into making an album. It seems likely that that tentativeness has probably now gone.

So, I would say we should look not at the period since Magnification but just slightly earlier, the period before Magnification. From Howe's return in the mid-nineties through to Magnification, the band was in that record/tour/record/tour cycle with the longest gap between records of 24 months from The Ladder to Magnification. Indeed, they did this while jumping between record labels. With greater stability through the relationship with Frontiers, it seems to me quite unsurprising that we should see a new album around mid-2013.

Prog's critics' choices

Yes fandom remains riven by the issue of Benoît David replacing Jon Anderson. The same debate sits like a black hole, dragging other discussions off course. So I find it interesting to step back sometimes and see how the prog music community more generally views the band's and the musicians' output.

The last issue of 2011 of Classic Rock Presents... Prog includes their annual Critics' Choice selection of the 20 best albums of the last 12 months, as voted on by the magazines' contributors. The winner is Opeth's Heritage but Yes's Fly from Here comes in 5th, with Steve Hackett's Beyond the Shrouded Horizon (with Chris Squire guesting and a couple of tracks co-credited to Steve Howe) coming 7th. Blackfield's Welcome to My DNA, with one track produced by Trevor Horn, is 11th. Steven Wilson's Grace for Drowning, with Tony Levin appearing, was the #2 album.

Rick Wakeman writes for the magazine, which has championed the planned Anderson/Wakeman/Rabin collaboration. However, nothing by Anderson or Wakeman makes their overall top 20. But the 21 contributors' individual top 20s are also listed, and we see appearances there by Anderson/Wakeman's The Living Tree and Jon Anderson's Survival & Other Stories, as well as the Jakszyk/Fripp/Collins album A Scarcity of Miracles (with Levin), Levin Torn White, John Wetton's Raised in Captivity (with Billy Sherwood, Tony Kaye and Geoff Downes) and Mars Hollow's The World in Front of Me (produced by Sherwood).

The King Crimson reissue series, obviously including multiple albums with Bill Bruford, was in the top 10 reissues list, while "Union Live" was in the top 10 DVDs.

The issue also includes glowing reviews of Steve Howe's Time and Yes's recent London show, and a more ambivalent review of In the Present - Live from Lyon.

Steve Howe's Time

It's been a joyfully busy time for Yes-related releases. Highlights include the aggressive Levin Torn White, Chris Squire appearing on Steve Hackett's Beyond the Shrouded Horizon, and Jon's epic of a digital single, "Open". The latest release is Time, Steve Howe's new solo album, now out in Europe, although a domestic release in the States only comes in 2012.

Time doesn't have multiple Yesmen on board, there are no epics, no big-name prog collaborators, even the cover is rather bland. Yet this may be some of the most beautiful music Steve Howe has ever recorded.

While Hackett's Beyond the Shrouded Horizon is a vibrant mish-mash of different styles (and includes some tracks co-crediting Howe as composer, presumably Hackett recycling GTR ideas), Howe has a tradition of very focused projects. In some ways, Time follows on from Natural Timbre, but while Natural Timbre was about acoustic playing, Time sees Howe working with a small orchestral ensemble. Rock and orchestra isn't a new thing. Yes did it on Magnification, Jon Anderson uses a string ensemble on "Open", and Howe fans will remember "Beginnings" on the album of the same name.

But this isn't a rock + orchestra album. Howe is much more integrated into a classical sound. Yet nor is this a classical guitar album. Howe kicks off the album with an interpretation of Heitor Villa-Lobos' "Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 (Aria)" (a mid-20th century piece combining a Bach-esque approach to Brazilian music) that he plays on steel guitar. Within the album's focus, there is variation. Sometimes the guitar is to the fore, but then there's a piece like "Orange" with Howe's banjo as the base and the orchestral instruments rotating the lead, while Joyce's "Purification" has some jazzier playing by Howe.

While Howe does play classical or acoustic guitar on about half the album, what shines through is a certain Steve-Howe-ness to all the playing. Credit must absolutely also go to Paul K. Joyce for the arrangements and how he complements Howe's guitar work. Joyce also plays keyboards, occasionally inserting an almost Wendy-Carlos-esque sound choice.

Joyce is best known for writing "Can We Fix It?", the theme song to Bob the Builder (which reached #1 in the UK and Australia in 2000). However, he has also done more orchestral music. There's a moment in "The Explorer" where the brass plays with the guitar -- spine-chilling. It's this attention to detail and a melodic and harmonic richness that makes Time stand out. There's an autumnal feel to much of the music, but different emotions are expressed, like with the jaunty "Orange".

Possibly the best Yes-related release of the year. Details, liner notes and samples all available at http://stevehowe-time.com/ .

Yes, 17 November 2011, Hammersmith Apollo

This isn't a full review, because mostly everything I said about the band's first UK date in Cambridge (see last blog post) applies here, their last UK date.

Overall, I think it was a slightly better performance, although with seats in the circle to the sides rather than being at the front, not quite as fun an experience! The new material in the set seemed to have benefitted from having had longer to bed-in. The slight tentativeness I described in Cambridge was gone, with "Life on a Film Set" and "Into the Storm", in particular, that little bit tighter. This was the best "Into the Storm" I've heard across these two shows and several boots.

This was a longer set than in Cambridge, a 2.75 hour run time (including an interval, at the venue's request). They played all of the rehearsed songs except "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and re-arranged the order to suit playing two sets (although in a different way to in Brighton): intro music: "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra", "Yours is No Disgrace", "Tempus Fugit", "I've Seen All Good People", "Life on a Film Set", "And You and I", Howe solo ("Solitaire", "Trambone"), "Heart of the Sunrise", interval, "Fly from Here", "Wonderous Stories", "Into the Storm", "Machine Messiah", "Starship Trooper", encore: "Roundabout". This gave the first set a big ending in "Heart of the Sunrise", but required the courage to open the second set with the full "Fly from Here" suite. It paid off with a positive audience reaction, although the biggest response was for "Wonderous Stories" and I was also chuffed at the very strong support for "Machine Messiah".


"Machine Messiah" was the one song we hadn't heard in Cambridge and a personal favourite, so I was very happy to hear it. That said, I wonder whether it has suffered from not being played every night, because there were a few flubs earlier on in the piece, due to Downes I think. Otherwise, performances were strong all round, with "Roundabout" (and Downes' playing on it) an unexpected highpoint. Squire was clear, focused and in good voice (and had his mum in the audience). White, full of energy. Howe, reliable as ever. David was better than in Cambridge, although still the occasional weak spot. The long note in the transition in the middle of "Life on a Film Set" still eludes him. And I still don't like how the band use "Starship Trooper: Würm" like "All Good People", as a place to set indvidual solos. I don't mind individual solos; I'm just a purist about how they should approach "Würm"!


So, great set, great performances, band are confident and appear to be still improving. I look forward to seeing reviews of the rest of the tour as it travels eastwards through Europe.

Yes, 8 Nov 2011, Cambridge Corn Exchange

Toe carefully strapped (see last blog post), I attended the first date on the British leg of Yes's European tour in Cambridge. (Squire introduced it as the first date on their English leg, only for Howe to offer a friendly correction of 'British'.)

Their first UK date, and only the fourth date of the whole tour, revealed a Yes totally different from the shambolic beginnings to their US summer tour, or even from their last visit to the UK two years ago. Tonight was a band firing on all cylinders, happy with each other, and hungry to perform. They were tight, well rehearsed, and all five delivered.


Whereas Howe had been the focal point in 2009, now the whole band were working as a unit. Squire was more focused and his singing was great. White didn't tire and the live environment showed off his drumming on the new material. Downes was comfortable, bringing his own style to the old material. David was in great voice: there were a couple of high notes he didn't quite reach, but ironically all on the new material. But I'm going to start talking about the set list, so look away now if you're avoiding spoilers...

While collecting the tickets for the evening, the venue's poor sound insulation meant I could hear the soundcheck. The piece they were playing set the scene for the show later that evening: "Into the Storm". Compared to 2008-10 and accusations of being a tribute band, when they were playing sets where often only two of the band had played on the original songs, the current line-up now are putting their own material out there, and more broadly breaking away from only the pattern of selections from The Yes Album/Fragile/Close to the Edge + "Owner of a Lonely Heart". They are also doing something many fans have long asked for: they are changing the set from night to night. Having played everything at their extra long debut show, each show since has seen different songs rotated in and out, and a willingness to sometimes omit the old warhorses that seemed permanently glued on. "Into the Storm" had been omitted at the previous show in Spain, and I took its soundcheck appearance as a good sign it would be played that evening. The soundcheck continued with the overture and first two parts of "Fly from Here", before rounding off with "Yours is No Disgrace". But what of the actual show?

Set: "Yours is No Disgrace", "Tempus Fugit", "I've Seen All Good People", "Life on a Film Set", "And You and I", Howe solo ("Solitaire", "Clap"), "Fly from Here" (whole suite), "Wonderous Stories", "Into the Storm", "Heart of the Sunrise", "Starship Trooper"; encore: "Roundabout". In other words, that's most of the new album, all except "The Man You Always Wanted Me to Be" and "Hour of Need". Compared to the opening European night, we had no "Machine Messiah" or "Owner of a Lonely Heart".

The new material worked and met a good audience reaction. The Cambridge Corn Exchange is a cosy venue (capacity 1800, sold out tonight) with most of the audience standing, and there was a good atmosphere. Some tentativeness by the band was apparent: for example, I could see Howe counting down the changes in "Life on a Film Set". But the full "Fly from Here", in particular, blossomed live. "Into the Storm" was less successful for me: it got too loud, a problem with "Würm" as well, although being right at the front, that may have been a problem with my location rather than the playing. (I could feel the air displaced by the bass notes, we were that close to the speakers.) "Solitaire" also came alive, and Howe's solo spot also delivered a vigorous rendition of "Clap", Howe's happiness apparent.

The new songs were placed in the middle of the set, with standards as bookends. "Yours is No Disgrace" worked well as an opener. I've seen Yes so often warm up over their first song, but the band were up to speed from the beginning tonight. "Wonderous Stories" was a pleasant return to the set and Downes, who has a short solo at the beginning, was able to express his style of playing. He was also hot on "Roundabout". "Roundabout" and particularly "Heart of the Sunrise" at the end of the set had seemed tempting songs to skip if my toe began throbbing, but I was glad I stayed, with great performances of both. "Heart of the Sunrise" shone despite its familiarity.

Less successful was "Starship Trooper". While "Disillusion" was strong, I could do without Squire's posturing in "Würm", although should anyone accuse me of being a killjoy, I enjoyed Downes' keytar excursion! Some reviewers have also criticised David's 'Dad dancing', but I liked it: he was enjoying the music, and conveying that enjoyment to the audience.

Met many other fans at the show, familiar faces like Brian, TB, Yumi and Malcolm, as well as new souls like Joey. Big hello to all.

In all, this is Yes back playing how they can. I know London at the end of the UK leg is already sold out, so if you haven't already got tickets, act soon.

The curse returns

February 2000: Yes were touring in support of The Ladder and played two shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London. I had tickets for both. After the first show, I went on to a friend's party and got mugged while waiting for a train. So, if you search around on Facebook, you can see a picture of me at the second show with a huge black eye.

Ah, well. These things happen, I thought.

The next Yes tour, the Masterworks tour, wasn't coming to Europe, so I and a friend decided to fly out to the US east coast. We were planning to see three shows and meet up with some friends we'd made online, like the infamous Steven Sullivan and Jeff Hunnicutt.We began with the 23 July Nissan Pavilion show, then the fantastic and infamous 25 July Virginia Beach show. Down the coast for Raleigh on 27 July, then it was on a train to get to Charlotte for the next day. We met some other fans on the train and we were offered a list to the venue that evening.

There we are, five of us in the car, just leaving the motel, when BANG. Another car had slammed into us as we were turning. Everyone staggered out of the car, checking to see how everyone else was. Lots of calls of "I'm OK", lots of consequent relief... except for me, who was still sitting there, too winded to say anything. I eventually climb out and it's obvious I'm not OK. Fortunately, we were one block from an emergency room and I was soon patched up, but we missed the show! And, unfortunately, my shoulder was in pieces and that took four years of pain and two operations to be repaired.

So, one misfortunate on the way from a Yes show. Then another misfortune on the way to a Yes show. Come December 2001 and the Magnification tour and I was a bit worried that something would happen during the show, maybe a lighting rig falling on me or something. But nothing untoward happened; the curse appeared broken.

Further happy shows followed: 2003, 2004, 2009.

And now it's 2011. I've got tickets for Cambridge tomorrow and London later in the tour. Both were nearly sold out. I could only get a standing ticket for Cambridge. But that's fine. It's not like I can't stand for two and a half hours.

Except, guess what? I broke my toe yesterday. I tripped going upstairs. A hairline crack of the proximal phalange of the right toe. A pretty trivial bone to break. It's not going to stop me working or anything. Except, you know, if I was planning to stand for two and a half hours in a crowded concert hall 48 hours later. That might not be a good idea.

The curse returns.