REV: Trevor Horn and His Band, 20 Dec 2025

The Trevor Horn Band, now billed as 'Trevor Horn and his band', returned for a 3-date min-tour of England in December 2025, finishing in London, where I was happy to see them. Opening, just at this date, was Belouis Some, with an enthusiastic, '80s-tinged set.

The Trevor Horn Band line-up is familiar (Trevor Horn, Lol Creme, Simon Bloor, Julian Hinton, Alex McArthur, Florence Rawlings, Izzy Chase and, on front of house, Tim Wiedner), but with a few changes: Ash Soan, who was in the original line-up of The Producers, is back on drums; while instead of Ryan Molloy on vocals, we had Jakko Jakszyk (vocals, guitar) and Roberto Angrisani (vocals), both of whom have performed with the band before.

The band opened with Frankies Goes to Hollywood’s "Two Tribes", with a good vocal from Angrisani, and then into "Video Killed the Radio Star", including a short "Check It Out" outro, as the band usually does. Angrisani returned for an emotional "Cry", with Creme taking a guitar solo at the end. Then Creme took lead vocals for "Rubber Bullets". So far, so familiar. This is the usual Trevor Horn Band material and it was all OK, but the performance felt a little bit flat.

Jakszyk to this point had looked fairly lost on stage, strumming some rhythm guitar parts and contributing a few backing vocals in "Rubber Bullets". He seemed under-rehearsed, perhaps a late addition to the line-up. But all that was to change for "It's Different for Girls" where he took lead vocals. Jakko’s vocals throughout were a highlight of the evening, bringing a star quality.

Horn started to introduce a Buggles song next, before being corrected that they were playing "Can't Fight the Moonlight". Having seen the set list from the first two shows, I had been expecting "Slave to the Rhythm" and "Owner of a Lonely Heart" before "Can't Fight…" and was worried whether they had had to shorten the set. And then we didn't get "Can't Fight the Moonlight" because McArthur was having technical problems. McArthur was running playbacks, which they use for additional elements on some songs. So, instead we went into another 10cc song, with "The Dean and I", Creme again taking lead vocals. Technical problems fixed and we did get "Can't Fight the Moonlight", with Chase taking lead vocals. 

The second Buggles song of the evening (and the second Buggles single) was "Living in the Plastic Age", with Horn on lead vocals and Bloor taking the lead keyboard role, as he also did for the next song, Frankie's "The Power of Love". Jakko was back for another fantastic vocal.

Horn introduced "All the Things She Said", with the mention of Russia drawing a few boos from the audience. Horn pointed out that the song long predated Russia's invasion of Ukraine and that the girls didn't personally invade! (Perhaps he hasn't seen Julia Volkova's more recent support for Putin?) Chase and Rawlings shared lead vocals.

Jakko was back for another good lead vocal on "I'm Not in Love", with Creme on keys. Then we had a jaunty take on The Buggles' "Elstree", with Bloor again on lead keyboards.

Horn told a story of how Rod Stewart had complained about the unusual 5-bar intro of "Downtown Train", making it tricky for him to know when to come him. Jakko was back on vocals and brought the song to life.

The set list the band plays has been fairly constant for several years, with some variations from show to show. I was a bit disappointed they had not updated the set list more for this mini-tour, but one change they did make was more Buggles material. The fourth Buggles songs of the evening was "Clean, Clean", I think a first for the band and a song that wasn't even played on the US Buggles tour when Horn was opening for Seal. That makes The Age of Plastic the most well represented album in the set. While Bloor mostly took the lead on keyboards for Buggles songs, this one was taken by Hinton.

The regular part of the show then ended with "Relax" (making Welcome to the Pleasuredome the second most represented album with 3 songs), sung by Roberto, who strode up and down the front of a stage flanked by Chase and Rawlings.

But that was not it for the evening. "Slave to the Rhythm", "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and "Kiss from a Rose" has been played on the first two nights, so where were they? The answer came when the band brought out Seal as a surprise guest. (Perhaps not that much of a surprise given he has guested with the band before.)

Seal is a charismatic showman. He dominated the stage. They'd set up two music stands with the words for "Slave to the Rhythm" on them, which he was clearly using, but he still delivered an excellent performance, even sinuously dancing at the appropriate point in the lyric. And then on to "Owner of a Lonely Heart", which he credited as persuading him to sign to ZTT. (He particularly praised the drums.) The audience in the stalls had been on their feet as soon as Seal had come out. Now he got us singing along to the chorus.

As the band got ready for the next song, someone in the audience called out for "Killer" and Bloor played a bar of it, amusing Seal, but the next song was actually "Kiss from a Rose". Again, Seal got us singing along (which is a lot harder to do than for "Owner…"!).

And, finally, after some brief discussion, Horn, Bloor, Seal and Soan managed an impromptu version of "Killer" (joined by McArthur on a shaker)! Lots of Seal getting the audience to sing "Solitary brother" and "Solitary sister".

In all, a very good show. It felt a little under-rehearsed in places, but at its best when the vocalists shone. It was nice to hear more Buggles songs, but the set list could be more adventurous in places. Seal is always worth seeing, but the vocalist of the night was Jakko. Horn is a very solid bassist. However, the instrumentalist of the night was Soan, a powerful drummer, but still with great feel. Bloor’s versatility also stood out, handling a Trevor Rabin guitar solo or a Geoff Downes keyboard part equally easily.

What does 2025 hold for Yes fans?

I believe 7 Yesmen have releases or live dates announced for 2025: Jon Anderson (Band Geeks live album and tour), Bill Bruford (Pete RothTrio shows), Rick Wakeman (solo shows), Geoff Downes (Asia live), Trevor Horn (onefestival appearance announced), Billy Sherwood (on Dave Kerzner’s Genesistribute album), and Jon Davison (at John Lodge live shows).

Although without announced dates, there are various other projects expected in 2025. How confident we can be of these actually happening varies, but I think we can have strong expectations for: a new Yes album and tour, a new Downes Braide Association album, and a new Rick Wakeman solo piano album.

More up in the air, but possible, is plenty more. There are three albums with Billy Sherwood that look like good bets for 2025: exo-X-xeno’s (also with Patrick Moraz); a new CIRCA: album (also with Tony Kaye and Jay Schellen); and an album with Dave Kerzner and Fernando Perdomo. There is a whole suite of Jon Anderson projects that might appear, with various follow-up albums (Anderson Stolt 2; 1000 Hands: Chapter 2; and a second studio album with the Band Geeks) and maybe the eventual realisation of some very long-running projects, Zamran (dating back at least to 2000) and Chagall (from 1980!). Other projects we could see include a new Asia album and more touring; maybe another Trevor Horn album; and various projects with Oliver Wakeman (maybe a tour, but more probably a release).

Can we put any firmer timelines or expectations on some of those? We know Yes have been working on a new album for a while and it is now expected in 2025. Can we narrow down that window? Probably not! An announcement early in the new year wouldn’t surprise me. There is a report that DBA are looking at a summer release for their next album. Management and everybody else will want some space (months) between releasing the new DBA and Yes albums, I’d guess. If DBA think a summer release is viable, that would fit with a Yes album coming in spring and an announcement in the new year.

On the other hand, the Yes Music Podcast in December said Paul K Joyce is "currently working on the next Yes album". If we interpret that literally, that means recording sessions haven’t finished, but are nearing the end. There were two orchestral recording sessions for Mirror to the Sky, held on 29 April and 11 May 2022. The album’s first single came 10 March 2023, with album release in May 2023. If Joyce was doing recording sessions in December 2024, that implies a release deep into the second half of 2025. If DBA think the summer is clear, does that mean a winter Yes release?

I don’t know. Yes run a tight ship and there are few leaks. If I had to bet, I’d guess spring, but time will tell if that’s wishful thinking.

Do we have any idea what the album might be like? It’s the same team as on Mirror to the Sky, including Joyce and I presume Schwartz. The band rushed straight from The Quest into Mirror to the Sky, leading to the shortest gap between two Yes albums since the odd circumstances of Keys to Ascension 2 and Open Your Eyes. But album number three in this series has taken longer. That’s partly to do with touring returning to normal levels after COVID-19. Does that mean something obviously a continuation of the previous two albums, or has more time meant more evolution? Howe has talked of writing six songs in late 2019 that were then all used over The Quest and Mirror to the Sky. With that body of work used up, does that imply something different for the new album?

Another Yes tour is almost inevitable. There have been rumours of a US tour in the first half of 2025. It may depend on when the album comes out.

We also have that new DBA album to look forward to. Before then, we’ve had a scattering of Asia dates already announced across two continents. I presume we will see more substantial touring; new singer/bassist Harry Whitley has talked about a West Coast US tour. Whitley has also said that the new line-up will be working on a new album, although his comments suggest they have not started writing yet, so that implies a release is going to be late 2025 or, more likely, into 2026.

Anderson has announced the release of a live album with the Geeks, Live – Perpetual Change, out in March 2025, and an associated US tour leg. They are clearly eager to make it over to Europe, but we’ve not seen any dates yet. While Anderson had initially spoken of not doing another album with the Geeks, the positive artistic and commercial reaction to True seems to have changed his mind and he has started on a second studio album with them. That might be out before the end of 2025 if they get their skates on, although again I expect 2026 is more likely. But Anderson also has multiple other projects in play. Before True’s success took over his plans, he had seemed more focused on Zamran, hoping to release a Chapter One in 2025, and staging “Chagall” as a musical. Work has been continuing off and on towards a second Anderson/Stolt album and Anderson has mooted a 2025 release for that too. 1000 Hands: Chapter Two appears close to completion. It’s an extraordinary flowering of creativity to have so many projects lined up. The albums all seem plausible for 2025, although the finances of stage musicals are much harder to arrange.

Most obviously missing from this list is Trevor Rabin. He had talked of another solo album to follow Rio and possible touring, but it’s been a while since we’ve heard anything.

All the above does presume a certain degree of geopolitical stability. In recent years, COVID-19 was world-changing, while the Russian invasion of Ukraine impacted some eastern European touring plans (although of course the effects on the music industry were minor compared to the wider tragedies of both). Hopefully 2025 won’t bring anything similar, but if Donald Trump actually went through with a US invasion of Panama or Greenland, that would probably mean no UK-based bands visiting the US, while his tariff proposals and any retaliation by other countries could also hit touring plans.