2023 in review: Yes, solo projects and more

I wanted to look back on 2023, a surprisingly busy year for Yes, its current and past members. But I wanted to do something different, so I thought to review the Yes members/alumni on four dimensions: workload, nostalgia, commercial success, and quality.

Some rules first. I'm just looking at new releases. I'm not considering archival releases here. I'm only considering active Yes members and alumni. Bruford has retired from musical performance. He did play on one song at the John Wetton tribute show, but that's all, so I'm not covering him. Tony Kaye is semi-retired. He is reportedly working on a new Circa album, but he's released nothing this year and done no live shows, so I’ve omitted him. Igor Khoroshev, last we knew, remains active doing sessions, but I’ve not seen anything from him this year, so he’s also excluded.

This is just looking at 2023, a snapshot. A musician may surprise us with their 2024 output, or be resting on their laurels after a successful 2022.

WORKLOAD

For workload or productivity, I'm considering live shows and releases.

Album releases in a year aren’t the best indicator of productivity in a year given the lead times to release. For example, Downes released Celestial Songs this year, but recording was completed in April 2022, with the release delayed. Likewise, Rabin released Rio, but he had been working on that for some years. He did very little work on it in 2023. Others (e.g., Oliver Wakeman, Jon Anderson) have been working on recordings this year that won't be out until later. Nonetheless, releases are the easiest thing to count, so that's what I've counted!

NOSTALGIA

A recurrent discussion around older acts is the tension between playing the old songs and making new music. Thus, I suggest a nostalgia quotient. This is based on two factors. Firstly, did live set lists focus on old songs or new material. Secondly, did the artist release new material, or at least new versions of old material, or nothing at all. 

COMMERCIAL SUCCESS

We sometimes pay little attention to commercial success. It can even be seen as shameful, a distraction from true art! And if you like an album or show, why does it matter how many other people do? Except it does matter. At least, if not enough other people like something, there won't be another album or tour.

I would like to consider album and ticket sales, but those are rarely available. We don't get data on album sales, but we can look at chart statistics, if the album charted. Likewise, we don't see ticket sales data, but we can at least track the size of venues booked.

QUALITY

This is, of course, wholly subjective, but I'm going to give you my opinions. You may have your own, of course. 

OK, everyone clear what we're doing? Then let's start. 

WORKLOAD, approximately from least to most

Patrick Moraz: 1 show, no material released. Moraz played a solo show at ProgStock 2023.

Oliver Wakeman: 1 show, 3 songs released. Oliver organised and played at the Other Coronation Concert with his dad Rick. He appears on 2 tracks of Carrie Martin's Evergreen and the "Lost in the Wild Wood" single by Rodney Matthews and Friends. I don't think this reflects a lack of work ethic on Oliver's part. He has recorded a new album, out in the new year, and I expect his live schedule reflects a lack of opportunity! He is not as well established a musician as others on this list. I suspect he would have been happy to play dozens of shows this year, but he’s not getting those kinds of offers.

Jon Anderson: 24 shows, 2 songs released. Anderson had two tours this year, a US leg with the Band Geeks (12 dates) and a European tour with the Paul Green Rock Academy (11 dates). There was also the Chagall student show, making 24 dates in total, but three different set lists. He had no album releases, but he did share some songs on social media. I think there were two new in the year: "We Are We Are" and "Realization Morning Temple". It appears he has been working on new recordings, on 1000 Hands: Chapter Two earlier in the year and an album with the Geeks later in the year, but I'm not counting chickens that haven't hatched yet.

Rick Wakeman: ~28 shows, 3 songs released. I'm counting A Gallery of the Imagination as a late 2022 release as it was available on a limited scale in 2022, albeit general release only came this year. In terms of 2023 releases, he's just got a few guest appearances: one track each with Ann-Margret, on Meddle Reimagined, and with the Fusion Syndicate. In terms of live work, he played two nights with the English Rock Ensemble (with different sets). He had one-off shows in April, May, July and November, and two in December, and appeared at the John Wetton tribute show. He had a US solo tour with 17 dates + a cruise appearance.

Jay Schellen: 27 shows, 1 album released. Schellen played 26 dates on Yes's tour (excluding the two cancelled shows) and played on Yes's Mirror to the Sky. He also appeared at the John Wetton tribute show.

Trevor Rabin: no shows, ~2 albums and 1 additional song released. Rabin released Rio this year. There was also National Treasure: Edge of History (Original Series Soundtrack) released back in January. That contains 30 tracks: 15 are credited to Rabin and 1 to Rabin and Paul Linford. He also did the theme tune for "Digman" and some string arrangements for a Joe Bonamassa live show in August. You can debate how to weight releases versus live shows in this list. Rabin is top 3 in releases for the year, but at the bottom for live work. One can also account for musician's roles in a project, e.g. Rabin doing almost everything on Rio, versus Schellen just drumming on Mirror to the Sky.

Billy Sherwood: 27 shows, 1 album and an additional 6 songs released. Sherwood's tally tracks Schellen's but with the addition of some guest appearances: 3 tracks on Kurt Michaels' Stones from the Garden, two standalone tracks with Cameron Carpenter, and 1 track on Laughing Stock's Songs for the Future.

Steve Howe: 26 dates, 2 albums released (plus a remix album). As well as his work in Yes, Howe also released Motif, Volume 2. While I'm not including archival releases, Howe did also lead on the Tomorrow release, Permanent Dream, that involved substantial remixing.

Jon Davison: ~61 shows, 1 album and an additional 3 songs released. As well as work with Yes, Davison also toured (33 dates + cruise) and recorded (2 tracks on Days of Future Passed – My Sojourn) with father-in-law John Lodge. He also guested on 1 track of Anyone's Miracles in the Nothingness. So, over twice as many live dates as anyone else yet in our list. You can see why he wrote "Circles of Time" now.

Trevor Horn: ~68 shows, 1 album and a production collection of sounds released. [EDIT: In a Jan 2024 interview, Horn says he did 80 shows in 2023.] Surprisingly, the busiest live player among the Yes members is Trevor Horn, the guy who gave up live performance after being in Yes. He did 28 North American dates as The Buggles opening for Seal and then playing with Seal as musical director and bassist. That was followed by 13 European dates with Seal, but no Buggles. There were also 39 dates with Dire Straits Legacy scattered over the year, which I think were all with Horn, but I'm not 100% certain of that, as the line-up can vary from show to show. (Horn is not on 2024 DSL live shows.) Horn also had a live TV appearance in Sep in Italy. He released Echoes – Ancient & Modern and there was also the 45Gb+ Jupiter production collection from Spitfire Audio.

Geoff Downes: 27 shows, 3 albums + 2 additional songs released. Downes played with Yes and co-organised the John Wetton tribute show. He was on Mirror to the Sky, he had another Downes Braide Association album in Celestial Songs, and he produced The Cold Blooded Hearts' The Cold Light of Day, on which he also performed on all but 3 tracks. He also did a song with Aaron Emerson and 1 track on Meddle Reimagined. So he didn't play as many live shows as Davison or Horn, but given 3 album releases in a year, I am declaring him the busiest Yes member of the year.

In terms of do-we-count-them-as-former-members, a note also for Tom Brislin, who played 52 shows with Kansas this year, although he wasn’t on any releases.

Tony Levin played 22 dates with Peter Gabriel and performed on his new album i/o. He has 5 Levin Brothers shows in Dec. He had 23 dates with Stick Men over the year and they also released a new live album. He was on 1 track of MEMEmusic by Unquiet Music Ltd. There appears to have been session work with various others (Tina Arena, Tania Doko, Marco Machera), but I've not checked the details. So, that's 50 dates and 2+ albums.

NOSTALGIA, approximately from most to least

Patrick Moraz: very nostalgic. I haven't seen a full set list for his one show, but it seems to have been familiar material.

Trevor Horn: very nostalgic. His live work was all old material. His album consists of covers.

Jon Anderson: very nostalgic. His live sets consisted purely of old material, although a few of the Rock Academy arrangements were newer. The Chagall show was a premiere, albeit all of the material dates back a varying number of years.

Rick Wakeman: very nostalgic. His live work mostly consisted of old material, although the US tour included one piece from A Gallery of the Imagination. 2/3 of his recorded work were covers, but he co-wrote a new piece, "IO", for The Fusion Syndicate.

Jon Davison: fairly nostalgic. On the anti-nostalgia side, he's got Mirror to the Sky and a song with Anyone, but the live Yes sets were mostly old material, and his 2023 work with John Lodge, live and studio, was all old material, although there may be new Lodge material coming.

Steve Howe: fairly nostalgic. Yes released a new album, but on most nights only played 1 song from it. Motif, Volume 2 includes 4 new pieces, but the rest of it is re-interpreting older songs, while the Tomorrow release was all remixing old songs.

Jay Schellen: middling. Live Yes (nostalgic) versus new Yes album (anti-nostalgic).

Billy Sherwood: fairly anti-nostalgic. Same as Schellen, except with a few more recorded tracks of new material.

Oliver Wakeman: fairly anti-nostalgic. I haven't seen a full set list for his one show, but I believe it was mostly familiar material. However, he has also been on releases of new material.

Geoff Downes: fairly anti-nostalgic. While his live sets were nostalgic, being involved in three albums of new material puts him high on this list.

Trevor Rabin: very anti-nostalgic. Almost everything Rabin did this year was new material.

COMMERCIAL SUCCESS, approximately from least to most

Based on what chart data I could find, I think the albums go in a decreasing order of sales as follows: Mirror to the Sky > Echoes – Ancient & Modern > Rio > A Gallery of the Imagination > Celestial Songs, and then maybe Days of Future Passed – My Sojourn and Permanent Dream, with others not troubling any charts. In terms of touring, I think Horn's tours with Seal and DSL probably constitute the most ticket sales when combined, then Yes and John Lodge are maybe about equal, followed by Anderson, and then R Wakeman. So, overall, my ranking of commercial success, from lowest to highest, would be…

Moraz, O Wakeman: nothing of note.

Jon Anderson: Both tours were relatively short, which affects total ticket sales. Venues with the Geeks were of moderate size. Those with the kids seemed to have been bigger. But no releases for sale limits his commercial success.

Rick Wakeman: I think Wakeman was playing to smaller audiences than Anderson or Yes in the US. Gallery didn't make the main UK album chart when it received its general release in 2023, but it was #11 on the UK Progressive albums chart, #18 on the indie chart, #37 on the physical albums chart, #39 on the album sales chart, and #97 on the paid download chart. It made #35 on the UK iTunes chart.

Trevor Rabin: Rio made #52 in Switzerland and #90 in Germany. It didn't make the main chart in the UK, but was #7 on the UK Progressive albums chart, #19 on the physical albums chart, #16 on the album sales chart, #52 on the paid download chart, and #5 on the rock & metal chart. It was also on various iTunes charts: US #24, UK #30, Australia #51, Germany #52, Canada #53.

Trevor Horn: Horn was the musical director for a significant tour by Seal, with good audience sizes in Europe and North America. Dire Straits Legacy also play surprisingly big venues. Horn also got an Italian TV appearance. Echoes made #81 in UK. It also made #47 in Germany and #68 in Austria. It was also on various iTunes charts: Brazil #3, Italy #8, UK & Germany #11, Australia #12, US #85. In addition, "Relax" made #81 and "Steppin' Out" #65 on Spanish iTunes, while "Slave to the Rhythm" made #51 in Italy and #63 in Germany.

Billy Sherwood & Jay Schellen: Both Sherwood's and Schellen's notable sales were just from Yes. Mirror to the Sky charted around the world: Switzerland #9, Germany #12, Japan #24, UK #30, Hungary #31, Portugal #35, Austria #53, Wallonia (Belgium) #55, Italy #61, Poland #62, Netherlands #84, Flanders (Belgium) #93, France and Spain #99. It did not make the main US chart, but was #4 in rock & metal and #22 in sales. It was also on various iTunes charts: Spain #3, Brazil #7, UK #10, Canada #13, US #17, Germany #18, Italy #19, Australia #23, France #36. Yes played to good audience sizes in the US. 

Jon Davison: As well as his work in Yes, Days of Future Passed – My Sojourn made #42 on Italian iTunes.

Steve Howe: As well as Yes, Tomorrow's Permanent Dream made #16 in the UK independent album breakers chart (albums of the week by an artist who has not yet reached the Top 40). It was also at #55 on French iTunes.

Geoff Downes: As well as Yes, Celestial Songs made #27 on the UK indie chart, #60 on the physical albums chart, #63 on the album sales chart, and #7 on the rock & metal chart. It did not chart on iTunes.

Among not quite Yes alumni, Tony Levin stands out. Peter Gabriel's i/o went #1 in the UK and #99 in the US. It was also top ten in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Switzerland. The tour, meanwhile, was in very large venues. You would think that would win, but, no, former ABWH keyboardist Matt Clifford was the runaway success of the year as he played on The Rolling Stones' Hackney Diamonds, which made #1 in the UK, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Netherlands, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. It made #3 in the US. It has gone Gold in the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Austria. It was the best-selling album of the year in Germany.

QUALITY

Of the various projects mentioned above, my favourite was Mirror to the Sky. Was it the best album? Was it consistently good? Maybe not, but it's the album that has stayed with me the most. My next favourite project, as I am always a Trevor Horn fanboy, was Echoes – Ancient & Modern. I'd put Rio third: I think it is a really strong album, possibly in some sense better than the previous two. Horn is 'cheating' because his album is built around a bunch of pre-existing great songs, whereas Rabin wrote his material. But if you asked me which album I'd rather listen to right now, Echoes or Rio, I would choose Echoes.

I am enjoying Celestial Songs: it's not clicked with me in the same way as Halcyon Hymns, but it's still a good one, so I'll put it fourth. Those are my standouts. Of the rest, National Treasure: Edge of History is not bad for a score album. The Cold Light of Day is a surprisingly good rock album, certainly the best album by a football player I've listened to. I like Motif, Volume 2, it does exactly what you would expect, no more, no less. I'll go with Cold Light fifth, Motif 2 sixth and National Treasure seventh.

In terms of the various guest appearances, Miracles in the Nothingness, Songs for the Future etc., nothing really jumped out at me, not that I have heard everything. Maybe "One of These Days" with Downes on Meddle Reimagined is the best of the lot.

I thought A Gallery of the Imagination was terrible, but if I'm counting it as a 2022 album, I can't blame Wakeman for it here! Days of Future Passed – My Sojourn was unimpressive.

In terms of live work, I loved the Jon Anderson + Paul Green Rock Academy show I saw. I was in the wrong country for the Geeks tour, but the recordings I heard were great. Likewise, Yes were playing the wrong continent for me this year, but I enjoyed the boot I heard and loved them last year. I saw the Seal show in the UK and had a great night, and I enjoyed listening to recordings of The Buggles set from the US. I also loved the stream for the John Wetton tribute show.

Put that all together and I think my personal ranking would be: Anderson (best live work), Horn (me = fanboy), Howe (for leading on Mirror to the Sky and Motif 2 is solid), Rabin (great work in Rio and not bad score output), Downes (3 albums and they are all good), Schellen, Sherwood, Davison, R Wakeman. (Insufficient data for Moraz and O Wakeman.)

In all, a great year for Yes-related music. I'm loving this late flowering of Trevor Horn's career. I hope he can get back to new music and not just nostalgia, but it appears he is constrained by record label interest and they want the nostalgia. Jon Anderson's recorded output was disappointing, hopefully 2024 will rectify that, but he has been performing fantastically. I am full of praise for Trevor Rabin's 2023. My highlight is a very enjoyable Yes album, but Downes and Howe deserve praise for so much work beyond that as well.

Rick Wakeman works hard, but it's been a while since he's done much of interest to me. Patrick Moraz does little and it's been a while since he's done much of interest to me. I hope we hear more from Oliver Wakeman and from Khoroshev in 2024.

Possible highlights for 2024? It is both exciting and somewhat worrying that Anderson has several projects that could be released next year: an album with the Geeks, 1000 Hands: Chapter Two, Zamran (or part one, at least). Maybe a bit more focus on finishing projects wouldn't go amiss? I look forward to seeing Yes live. I wonder how work on a new album is getting on? A new Circa album could be interesting. Might we get the new John Lodge project with Davison and Downes? Could the hinted-at Dave Kerzner/Jon Davison project come to fruition? Horn is touring with his band, but also, it appears, with a reunited Producers. Horn has said he's got another solo album recorded. Braide says another DBA album is already written.

First thoughts on Mirror to the Sky

InsideOut kindly sent me the new Yes album. It’s a strong release. While recognisably the same band (almost) as on The Quest, Mirror to the Sky is a big step up. We have better drums, better vocals, better tempo, and no tracks you want to skip. The band sound more integrated; the long songs are more coherent. It’s an album I keep returning to with much pleasure.

This is a new incarnation of Yes. While it harks back to prior Yes output in places, they are doing their own thing. On one side, we have the propulsive Sherwood/Schellen rhythm section, on the other we have Howe’s steel guitar entwining with Joyce’s string arrangements. At the centre is Jon Davison, who is becoming more assured as a writer and arranger. We have big, twangy guitar sounds, frequently evoking the American West. We have lyrical themes about our connections with the stars.

It’s not a perfect album. I’d like to hear some more classic riffs and melodies from Howe; there’s a tendency towards simple ascending or descending motifs. Davison occasionally skirts cliché in the lyrics. Downes is rather absent, spending much of the album in the background.

I’m never certain what Yes fans want. Maybe we all want different things? But I think most fans wanted this: more rock, more oomph, more epic. Now, let’s go through the songs one by one.

 

CUT FROM THE STARS / ALL CONNECTED

You’ve all heard the two ‘singles’. I wrote about “Cut from theStars” here and “All Connected” here. I first heard the album as a whole before “Cut from the Stars” was released and it took me the longest to get into. I still feel it has a certain angular feel to it, but that works.

The two singles to date have prompted a few comparisons with Arc of Life. I think Sherwood and Schellen are shining in the Yes environment. I can hear similarities to Arc of Life, but there are multiple Sherwood-led albums since The Quest (via the Prog Collective and Arc of Life) and they all pale compared with the work he’s doing here. And while the singles have foregrounded Sherwood’s writing, it is Howe who is still the main composer on the album.

 

LUMINOSITY

This is an album that ebbs and flows, within songs and across songs. Compared to the tracks before and after, “Luminosity” begins in a statelier fashion. The opening with guitar, orchestra and drums, keeps things slow, before we move into a jauntier section. The main theme is then introduced instrumentally, before Davison sings mostly unaccompanied. It’s a strong vocal line, with a Celtic folk feel. Wasn’t Davison living in Ireland for a period? The lyrics return to the stellar theme: “Like the stars, we are luminous”. We also reference extraterrestrial life, a common Yes theme (compare “Arriving UFO”). Sherwood’s backing vocals are strong again.

This was one of the first two pieces the band worked on, before The Quest was even released, and in some ways it sounds most like the material on The Quest (compare “Dare to Know” maybe). Both this and “All Connected” contrast Davison/Sherwood with Howe/Joyce/orchestra, with Schellen’s drums providing the important linking element. Howe’s playing is slow and heartfelt, Joyce’s arrangements add colour and variation, leading to an uplifting conclusion. “Luminosity” also stands out as the first time Downes comes to the fore.

“All Connected” and “Luminosity” are rather alike. I wonder whether moving one of the pieces to elsewhere in the running order would work better?

 

LIVING OUT THEIR DREAM

This is the odd one out, which isn’t a criticism. I think its oddity fits well into the flow of the album, a break from the bigger pieces. At first, it’s quite a confusing listen. Structurally, it’s a straightforward tune, with a nice, plaintive Howe solo towards the end. It sounds almost like a Rolling Stones pastiche, with a hint of Americana. The vocals are much lower, with Howe and Davison in close harmony producing a “third voice”. It’s the lyrics that stand out. They are almost absurdist, shades of Zorbonauts, who Downes plays with. Davison has said the song is a critique of modern weddings, but I feel it goes further, lamenting the divisions of society caused by social media. There’s a line that reminds me of t.A.T.u.’s “Craving”. And then into a deliberately downbeat – musically and lyrically – ending.

I don’t think this is simply the short rocker on the album. I suggest the music is deliberately a pastiche to match the lyrics. It’s akin to “Money” or maybe “Countryside”. Possibly, the song needs just slightly more energy to pull off its message?

 

MIRROR TO THE SKY

This is the title track, the centrepiece of the album, the one garnering most attention in reviews. It’s a statement piece and it works. All the ingredients come together. We start with a big, phat riff from Howe, evoking the wide open skies of the American West. Other instruments come in, including some tasty piano from Downes. Then the drums kick things up a notch. Howe brings a dirty sound on the electric guitar. Sherwood gets to state the bass part unaccompanied. The music builds into a groove, Howe wailing away. The whole thing builds to an early climax less than three minutes in.

Then we’re stripped right back to an acoustic guitar motif, and Howe sings one of two key vocal motifs, “Dreams of a sky without fire”. Davison then takes over as vocalist. He sings of the “currents of chance”, somewhat obvious lyrics, but nicely accompanied by an orchestral part depicting the “leaves in a storm”. The energy builds back up and we repeat the vocal line: we’re rocking, but we’ve also got the horns in the orchestra adding colour.

Around four and a half minutes, we get the second key motif, “you are my mirror to the sky”, introduced instrumentally on electric guitar first, then Davison sings. We repeat this motif with variation.

A bit after five minutes, we get what I hear as the centre of the song as we contrast our two lines: “You are my mirror to the sky / Still I dream of a sky without fire”. It’s anthemic, evocative, beautiful, aided by a certain mystery as to what it all means! Davison’s “mirror to the sky” seems to be romantic in intent, the words coming from something his new wife said, more personal than much of the lyrical content that has come before. But Howe wrote the “dreams of a sky without fire” line and there’s a certain narrative tension between this and “mirror to the sky”. Do we want some fire in the sky; why are we dreaming of its absence?

The orchestra comes more to the fore, and we’re in another steel guitar and orchestra section, something of a recurring pattern for the album. We get slow but emotional playing from Howe against fast, lively orchestrations.

We move into one of Davison’s lyrical islands and a sudden flurry of words when before they were used sparsely. Davison sings of metaphysical mysteries, before we re-visit the opening guitar part, Howe building the tension. Another vocal highlight as Davison sings, “We are star fire”, tying us back to “Luminosity” and “Cut from the Stars”. It’s a great moment, yet the line only occurs once. The song deliberately holds back on these moments of emotion when the vocals break in.

We go back to that stripped down acoustic guitar part to introduce the slow movement, guitar and orchestra. The song is in a contemplative mood, bringing us back down carefully. The acoustic guitar motif again heralds a final change, with the orchestra taking over for a recapitulation of the main themes, with swells of strings and rhythmic horns. The band re-join for an energetic coda.

 

CIRCLES OF TIME

This is the comedown song after the epic, a chill out room for the ears. A pretty song, lyrically it’s another “Roundabout”, a song about missing one’s lover while on tour. It’s a ballad, but with subtle backing from strings, extra guitar parts and moments when Davison double tracks himself.

 

BONUS DISC

When I first heard the album, I thought the bonus disc was fine, but very bonus track-y, a bit disposable. With The Quest and Heaven & Earth, there were a few songs that people felt belonged on a Steve Howe solo album rather than a Yes album (“It was All We Knew”, “Damaged World”). With Mirror to the Sky, had Yes gathered all those songs and put them on the bonus disc?

However, over the weeks, I’ve found myself listening to the bonus tracks as much as the rest of the album, more than some of the main disc. I’m not saying “One Second is Enough” or “Magic Potion” are going to go down in history as classic Yes songs, but they’re fun, they’re very listenable. “Unknown Place” is very good for much of its runtime. I don’t think now that they are disposable. I think this is just another side of the current Yes.

 

UNKNOWN PLACE

The obvious comparison for “Unknown Place” is “Mirror to the Sky”. It feels like a spare: in case you lost “Mirror to the Sky” down the back of the sofa, you could substitute in “Unknown Place”, with similar sounds and grand design. There’s a lot to like about it. I love the introduction, the playing, and a luscious ending highlighting Downes’ organ playing, his standout moment on the album. But the basic song at the centre of it just doesn’t do much for me; we lack the anthemic lines of “Mirror to the Sky”.

The opening twangy guitar part brings us back to the American West, while vocals evoke Native American rituals, and then we’re into the main part of the song. Over the album as a whole, Howe is less prominent as a vocalist than he was on The Quest, but a middle section here uses Howe the singer more. The piece turns more instrumental and we then have two significant sections, both with Downes to the fore. The second leaves the American West for a baroque and Gothic horror feel led by Downes, while Howe is doing Bach-like guitar exercises, making for a great ending.

 

ONE SECOND IS ENOUGH

A simpler song. A nice intro from Downes leads into the main part, which bounces along. Howe’s message is about the fleeting nature of happiness.

The chorus vaguely reminds me of “I’ve Got a Theory” from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical “Once More with Feeling”, which was written by Joss Whedon, who is a Yes fan, so maybe his writing was influenced by Howe and whatever my brain is picking up on all makes sense?

A nice Howe solo at the end and into a clock ticking as the ending.

 

MAGIC POTION

“Love is a magic potion”, Howe tells us. We have similar lyrical themes to The Quest’s “Music to My Ears”. It’s all fine, if a bit forgettable. But it’s all worth it for a delightful, groovy bass line, written by Howe, played by Sherwood, and which Downes doubles on a couple of bars. Just extract that, I could listen to that on a loop all day.

 

To summarise, “Mirror to the Sky” is the best track, where the pieces all come together to make a substantial piece of music that can stand in the Yes canon. “Cut from the Stars” is a good single, a concise statement of what Yes can be. I enjoy listening to “Luminosity”, “All Connected” and “Unknown Place”: they’re close to capturing the Yes magic, but maybe they’re not quite there.

“Living Out Their Dream” and “Circles of Time” are songs to themselves, doing something specific on their own terms. “One Second is Enough” and “Magic Potion” are cute, simpler songs – very listenable.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It flows well as an album, the lyrical themes draw the experience together. It’s an album to be savoured, headphones on.

The band are already working on a third album in quick succession. If they can keep up the momentum, who knows what they can achieve?

Cut from the Stars - a first listen

Yes introduce their new album, Mirror to the Sky, with “Cut from the Stars”, a paean to the night sky and how it can ground us. The song is released 10 March 2023, but as it's already 10 March somewhere in the world...

After orchestral strings start us off (shades of the intro to “Rhythm of Love” on Big Generator), we go into a driving bass line that I feel Chris Squire would approve of, and then into an energetic chorus. “International dark star” – is that a reference to the International Space Station? [Edit: I misheard Davison's vocals. The lyrics have this as "International dark sky park". A dark sky park is an area with reduced light pollution to facilitate views of the night sky.]

Most of the instruments drop out and the tempo slows so that the vocals can take centre stage for the first verse. “When I’m in need of some perspective / I find my place in the jewelled collective / Daylight glare blinding me / Only after dark may I clearly see”, which I think is some of Davison’s best work. Notice the subtle arrangements going on with the backing vocals. The vocal section continues, with the anthemic line “We have transmission after dark” standing out.

Then around 2:50, Howe comes in with a solo for contrast, Sherwood’s bass burbling along underneath. The middle 8 has some more nice Davison/Sherwood vocal interplay. The song builds towards a vocal climax, and we could just finish around 4:30, but there’s an instrumental coda akin to the “Interaction” section of “The Ice Bridge” with trading solos from Howe and Downes.

The lyrics match the album cover, and possible lyrical themes may return in “Luminosity” and “Mirror to the Sky”. Yes’s lyrics when Jon Anderson was in the band often focused on the Sun. Here, we switch to the stars (although of course the stars are just distant suns). Yes have referenced stars before, notably in the cover of Tales from Topographic Oceans, and Anderson references the Pleiades constellation in his recent work.

“Cut from the Stars” is a song led by Sherwood’s bass and Davison’s vocals. (Dare I say, this is what Arc of Life should be sounding like, but doesn’t?) It’s a somewhat more modern sounding song than The Quest’s opener and one not blighted by the mix up over who wrote it!

In all, a rousing and focused introduction to the new Yes album. One can hear why it was chosen as an album opener and single. Of course, everyone is wondering what comes next, particular with the longer songs, up to nearly 14 minutes for the title track.

REV: Melody Makers documentary

"Melody Makers" is a new documentary film about the magazine Melody Maker, based around the pictures of their chief contributing photographer, Barrie Wentzell. The film was directed by Canadian Leslie Ann Coles, her first full length film in that role.

 After showing in North American US film festivals, "Melody Makers" received its UK première on 24 September as part of the Raindance Film Festival. Coles and several of the interviewees were in attendance for a Q&A session after the film.

After briefly introducing the magazine's beginnings as a trade publication in 1926 for jazz musicians, the film focuses on the period from the mid-sixties to the end of the seventies, more or less when Wentzell worked there and the magazine's glory days, when sales were high, musicians dreamt of being on the front page and the journalists could drive opinions. But the film is also the story of the music of that period, the two being intertwined, from how they championed The Who early on, to Pete Townshend being given his own column because he kept writing in to the letters page so much, to David Bowie having to lend two Melody Maker journalists the money to get back home after a trip to Paris that they had taken to (successfully) catch him away from his management.

Melody Maker were supportive of prog, and many prog artists are among the interviewees, particularly Ian Anderson, but also Sonja Kristina, Alan White, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Steve Nardelli, and Roger Dean. (The credits at the end thanked Jon Anderson, Benoit David, and Oliver Wakeman, but they don't appear.) Some of the anecdotes will be familiar: Nardelli tells his usual Hendrix story, White his usual Lennon story. Others were novel: Squire talks of the magazine's support for Yes, while Howe talked about being so often on the cover and the difficultly finding interesting clothers to wear for this! Many of Wentzell's photos are of prog musicians, with some nice Yes photos from 1969 and 1972, King Crimson in 1972 and several of Ian Anderson and Peter Gabriel. The soundtrack relates to the music of the day, with a bit of "Close to the Edge" and some Ian Anderson in the mix. The film was several years in development, with many interviews done 6-8 years ago, thus Squire's inclusion.

Alan often tells the story of John Lennon ringing him up to ask him to play the Live Peace in Toronto show and Alan just presuming it's a friend trying to prank him. The bit I hadn't heard before was how Alan's then band were annoyed because they had a gig booked the same night and needed the money, so they tried to persuade him that going off to play with John Lennon would be a bad career move. He disagreed!

While some of the history of the music will be very familiar to the hardcore fan, Coles' decision partway through filming to focus more on the magazine is welcome as this brings fresher perspectives. I believe the project began with Coles meeting Wentzell and it is sort of his story, told by him in interview and well as through his photography. He and Chris Welch, one of the main journalists at the time and known for his writing since (including perhaps the most successful Yes biography), often worked as a duo and we got lots of Welch interviewed as well. Another key Melody Maker figure, Chris Charlesworth, is probably the third most often on screen.

The story of the magazine is, in some ways, of a more innocent age at first, musicians coming to the offices to be interviewed, alone, not accompanied by PR; of journalists respecting musicians' confidences and not reporting on their bad behaviour on tour; of the staff promoting the music they liked, and seeing it as a joint enterprise with the artists to promote good music. Musicians avidly read the magazine themselves and saw themselves through its lens when they got famous. Perhaps press and bands were too in cahoots at times. Headlines were sometimes concocted for publicity. Ian Anderson tells of his horror at seeing a headling that Jethro Tull had splitt up, invented by his manager.

But as the years pass, we hear more tales of excess and money flowing, then egos and drugs getting in the way. The film has something of a maudlin end: it follows a generation of Melody Maker staff who left around the turn of the '80s and they are scathing of the magazine's subsequent direction. The story ends with much lamenting of today's music scene, before a coda about Wentzell's own experience moving to Canada and getting re-involved in music.

Throughout the film, the visuals are mostly of Wentzell's photos. These are lovely to see, although sometimes just there, unconnected to the narrative, shoved into montages. Stand outs include a lovely photo of Roger Waters with his three cats, a photo of a haunted Syd Barrett as he descended into paranoia, a very pretty photo of Yoko Ono, some relaxed photos of Bowie in Paris... there are many. We also get spreads from the magazine, although often moving too quickly to read more than a headline. The best of which is surely: "Robert Fripp... Super Stud?"

 As is the fashion with modern documentaries, there is no narration. I asked about this in the Q&A, and Coles replied that a producer early on had suggested it, but she felt the photos and the interviewees told the story eloquently themselves and she made that choice early on. I don't entirely agree. If I have a criticism of the film, it is that the flow of the story is sometimes lost. There is a tendency in places to go off into lightweight rock anecdote when I wanted to hear more about the publishing world. There was also the occasionally annoying decision made to interleave two unrelated anecdotes, cutting between the interviewees telling these separate stories, which added to neither.

The Q&A after the film included Coles, Wentzell, Kristina and others. Steve Howe had been advertised, but his absence was hardly surprising given the recent and unexpected death of his son, Virgil Howe. Again, there was more lamenting about things today, although Kristina gave a spirited defence of the value of the Internet for promoting music.

In all, an enjoyable film, worth seeing, with great photos, telling an interesting story of music journalism through the period, with some touching moments (like Wentzell's clear affection for Hendrix), if in a few places a more rambling narrative than I prefer.

REV: Firefly Burning, 17 Sep 2017, London

Firefly Burning
supported by Counter's Creek
The Slaughtered Lamb, London
17 Sep 2017
http://www.fireflyburning.co.uk/

I think I like The Times' description of Firefly Burning best: "ideal for anybody who wishes Kate Bush were a bit more arty or Steve Reich were a lot more folky". The band have been around for some years now, part art-folk, part avant-pop, reviewed by prog and folk magazines alike. They were playing a pair of dates previewing new material.

First up were Counter's Creek, an instrumental folk trio from Walthamstow on fiddle, pipes and guitar. Not my usual kind of music, all jigs and reels, but good stuff.

Then Firefly Burning. The band are Bea Hankey (voice), Jack Ross (guitars, drum), James Redwood (violin, mandolin), John Barber (synths, gamelan, piano) and Sam Glazer (cello), and all those people and instruments barely fitted on the small Slaughtered Lamb stage. The venue seemed full, so just getting into a three figure audience, I would guess. The band opened with "Beloved" from their second album, Skeleton Hill, and partway through they played "I am a Bomb" from the same album, both having become signature pieces for the group.

But the rest of the set was around seven new pieces from their planned third album, which they'll be recording in October at Aldeburgh Music in Suffolk. I think one was familiar from a late 2016 show, but I had not heard the rest and I'm not certain what details I can remember! Hankey said they have written more lyrics themselves for the third album, exposing themselves more, with songs of loss, hope and love. Their first new piece was "Follow", a similar piece to "Beloved", and partly inspired by the feeling of walking over tactile pavements(!).

A song about a kitsch greeting card was next and showed the fun side of the band. There was a spacey song about the stars, inspired by Hankey's love of dystopian SF, one of my favourites of the new material. Other new pieces included "Lost" and a piece entitled "Call to Me" that interpolated Thomas Hardy's poem "The Voice" with additional lyrics from Hankey. Hankey did all the talking from the stage in between songs and was charming in her explanations of the new material. After sustained applause, they came back to encore with a cover of Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees".

The new material offers the Firefly Burning recipe of Hankey's dramatic and enveloping vocals, harmony vocals by the band, some driving melodies, and unusual rhythmic parts, all within a minimalist/avant-folk atmosphere. The band are great live; I recommend both previous albums and look forward to the third one.

REV: The Reflection Wave One—Original Soundtrack, by Trevor Horn

For someone who has been so successful and working in the industry for so many years, it is perhaps odd that Trevor Horn has never released a solo album before. As he says in one of the video interviews for the special edition of The Reflection Wave One—Original Soundtrack, he wouldn't pick himself as someone to produce. Yet here we are, Trevor Horn's first solo album... of sorts. Following on from Producers/The Trevor Horn Band, Horn steps out from behind the recording desk, although a soundtrack album still keeps him one step removed from your usual solo debut.

What then has coaxed Horn out of his shell? The surprising answer is a Japanese anime series entitled The Reflection, co-created by famed comics writer Stan Lee (co-creator of Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, the X-Men, Thor etc. etc.) and director Hiroshi Nagahama (directed Mushishi, The Flowers of Evil, Detroit Metal City). An initial season of 12 episodes premiered 22 July 2017 on NHK. The show has had middling reviews. I'm enjoying it (subtitled), but I wouldn't make any grand claims for it. The story entails a cataclysmic event some years previously, the Reflection of the title, that has left select individuals as superheroes or supervillains. We follow the protagonists along as they team up to fight the bad guys. The anime itself has a blocky visual style, a reference, I take it, to old comic books. And, indeed, the whole story is a paean to a style of comic storytelling that Lee pioneered. There are, perhaps, only so many superpowers to dream up, so some of the characters are familiar: a key villain is a female Magneto, for example. Others, like Lisa Livingstone, are more imaginative. We're still partway through the series, so no comment yet on how it all fits together.

Within all this is Horn's music, but the music is also part of the fiction. The lead single, “Sky Show”, exists within the story as a 1980s one-hit wonder by a character called Ian Izette, who has now donned a super-suit to fight crime. Trevor Horn 'appears' in episode 4 (voiced by someone else, in Japanese) as the producer of "Sky Show". (On the soundtrack album, "Loneliness and Solitude" begins by replicating this scene in English, with Horn doing his own voice, and his daughter doing her voice.) Another four characters in the show are meant to map on 9nine, the Japanese girl group who sing the end title song.

Along with the anime and a forthcoming DVD release, we have The Reflection Wave One—Original Soundtrack (U/M/A/A Inc.). This is available in a regular form on CD in Japan, released 16 August, but only digitally in the US and UK (it's available on iTunes, but not Amazon). The US and UK also get a digital single of "Sky Show" with three additional songs, which are also available on a limited edition expanded CD release in Japan, that also comes with a bonus DVD with various interviews and 5.1 mixes. Thus, you can get all the music on the expanded Japanese CD in the US and UK by getting the album plus single.

 Let's start with the two songs. "Sky Show", befitting its role in the fiction, is kind of like a less dystopian The Buggles. It has that '80s Horn production sound, distinctly Trevor Horn, with a pulsing rhythm and soaring vocals. But, more so, it wouldn't sound out of place on Producers' Made in Basing Street, a companion piece to Freeway, with maybe a few '80s-isms thrown in. (And the extended version would fit on the extended edition of Made in Basing Street, with added instrumental arrangements/solos.) The similarity to Producers is not too surprising with the return of Chris Braide as a co-writer and on backing vocals. (Indeed, there's a version with Braide on vocals on YouTube.) The song was inspired by the great sunsets, a literal sky show, visible from one of Horn's SARM studios.

The third version of the song on the expanded Japanese CD, or a b-side on the US/UK single, is "unplugged" and, I think, is the same version used within the fiction as the supposed original demo of the song.

 The other song, my favourite piece on the album, is "Future Boyfriends", a more modern style, perhaps representative of the 2017 Trevor Horn Band rather than the earlier Producers. It's a co-write with Simon Bloor and Cameron Gower Poole, two mainstays of the recent band. It's a classic of the Japanese anime end credits theme genre. Up there with "Lithium Flower" from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. The lyrics are cute and reference the show. It's a good melody, a clever arrangement: a great pop tune. Great vocals by Paget Shand, a little known US singer-songwriter who has her own band as WŸNN.

 "Future Boyfriends" is only the English-language version of the song. The Japanese version that is used in the show is called "SunSunSunrise" and is sung by a Japanese idol group currently consisting of Uki Satake, Sayaka Nishiwaki, Kanae Yoshii, and Hirona Murata. Signed to Sony, they've had a number of top ten singles in Japan and recently sampled Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax" (produced by Horn) for their single "Why don't you RELAX?". 9nine recorded their vocals in Japan, without Horn's involvement.

The Horn soundtrack album just gets you the 89 second version of "SunSunSunrise", as used on the show. For the full song in Japanese, you need 9nine's single release, which comes in multiple variants, although if you've heard the full English version "Future Boyfriends" and the short Japanese edit, then there is not much new on the full Japanese version. Both language versions use an identical backing track. The long version gets you a club break and instrumental section, including keyboard solo.

Although in places the Japanese version is described as a translation of the English, it isn't. There's no relationship between Horn's English lyrics and Kohei Tsunami's Japanese lyrics. This is slightly confusing because Horn's lyrics refer to the series in several ways, whereas the Japanese lyrics don't. Was there a plan to translate Horn's lyrics or just to use English lyrics (as anime sometimes does)? Did 9nine want a single that wasn't so obviously tied to a show? The bigger question is whether we'll see an English-language version of The Reflection and, if so, which version they'll use.

If you get 9nine's single, you get – at least in some versions – two b-sides, "ゆるとぴあ" ["Yurutopia"] and "ケセラセラヴ" ["Que sera, se love"], the latter with music by Kohei Tsunami, the "SunSunSunshine" lyricist. The b-sides are very J-poppy. "ゆるとぴあ" is almost chiptune, with staccato rhyming. "ケセラセラヴ" has a gloriously odd mix of English and Japanese words. My Japanese isn't good enough to fully appreciate either.

To return the soundtrack album, that makes two good Trevor Horn songs, recommended for fans of his work. There's a whole album here though. The score is a score, which means short instrumental cues. Score music is not to everyone's tastes: just get the single if you want the songs.

The track labelled "Main Theme" is the music to the opening credits, kind of a mini-overture for the whole score. This is big, superhero action music, with a scary undertone. In one interview, Horn explains how the good guys get more orchestral cues (mostly written with regular collaborator Julian Hinton) while the bad guys get electronic cues (mostly written with another regular collaborator Jamie Muhoberac), which he thinks might be better. I concur: there's more interest in the electronic cues, like the foreboding "Hear Them Come" (or the more percussive arrangement, "Here Them Come (Again)") or the evil prance of "Reflected". The heroic cues seen more familiar: big, rousing pieces. "From on High", "From Battle to Flight" or "Greater Expectations", for example, could have come from half a dozen other film composers or projects. Which is fine: they serve their purpose in the show.

The pieces were written to clear mood descriptions, which Horn describes in one of the interviews as being very useful. For example, "In a Work of Unreason" is made to be background music. Nice to have, but I'm not rushing to listen to again. Other pieces have a bit more character, like "Loneliness and Solitude" or "The Transition". "I am Alone with Sadness" evokes Jean-Michel Jarre. "Left in a Bleak and Desolate Land" (co-written with Lol Crème) could be on a James Bond score. Some pieces remind me of the Art of Noise, like "In Chaos and Confusion" and "Peace in Blue". "My Daily Life" perhaps get closest to a song structure: you could imagine this with vocals as a Buggles song.

 TL;DR: There are two classic Trevor Horn pop songs here and the cheapest way to get them in the West is the digital single "Sky Show". Hardcore fans will want the whole album.

King Crimson, Live in Toronto, an alternative review

Quick thoughts on the new King Crimson live album, Live in Toronto, a 2015 recording by the new septet, playing a set ranging from “The Court of the Crimson King” to some new material. This isn't a bad album, but it is a long way from being a great album. The five albums I got before this one happened to be:

Delta Saxophone Quartet with Gwilym Simcock: Crimson! (a mostly covers album of Crimson pieces)

The Morgaua Quartet: Atom Heart Mother is on the Edge (a Japanese string quartet doing prog pieces, including “Red” and “Peace-Fallen Angel including Epitaph”)

Eddie Jobson: Four Decades

UK: Curtain Call

Zakir Hussain: Making Music

... and they're all better.

The latest incarnation of King Crimson has abandoned the band's usual approach and gone for the nostalgia market that dominates the prog rock scene, a market the band have already targeted with umpteen mega-deluxe collectors' edition re-releases. In that context, after several bank-account-busting box sets, this release is value for money, a 2CD release for just £10.

Some Crim fans have argued that it's not nostalgia because of magic reasons to do with Crimson being different. I understand why bands focus on nostalgia. There's nothing wrong with nostalgia. The set/track list offers your 'greatest hits', so to speak, of King Crimson, save for skipping over the 1980s. These are good picks.

There is a little bit of new material. Ignoring the filler, like the intro soundscape, the new pieces amount to just “Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind”/“Meltdown”. Classic bands are in a bind: dismissed as nostalgia if they don't play new pieces, but criticised when the new pieces aren't up to scratch. Well, yes, the same applies here: “Radical Action...” is generic, Crimson-by-numbers. “Meltdown” is the better piece and a chance for Jakszyk to bring something of himself to the role. It mixes a bit of Jakszyk's style with a Crimson sound. But it also feels a bit unfinished. “Meltdown” could be compared to UKZ's “Radiation”, but the latter is the better piece of music and a better piece of Crimson music.

We do get two new drum trio pieces as well, but neither does all that much with the format. “Banshee Legs Bell Hassle” is over before its begun. “Hell Hounds of Krim” bores. Compare One, the album by Pete Lockett's Network of Sparks feat. Bill Bruford, for what a multi-percussion piece can do.

By the way, the ever more boastful and grandiose titles, like “Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind” and “Hell Hounds of Krim”, ring ever more hollow when paired with below-average offerings!

But the core problem with this recording is a certain stilted, lumpen quality to the performance. Just in places, but enough that I spent as much time remembering better versions of these songs than coming back to these versions. It's the Wetton-era material that seems to suffer most, like “Red” and “Easy Money”, both lacking bite (compare Wetton and Jobson on Curtain Call), although “Level Five” also drags. Some have suggested this is a result of the band using a click track and the challenges of keeping the three drummers in sync. If that is the case, it wasn't a price worth paying.

The inclusion of three percussionists and of Collins does add a distinct flavour to the affair and they are sometimes used well, like as on parts of “Larks 1” and “Red”. Collins is good on “Starless”. Yet despite the unusual line-up, the material is not radically re-worked: compare what the Delta Saxophone Quartet + Simcock do, or The Morgaua Quartet.

The band are best on the material from the first four albums, a reminder at this time of what Greg Lake could do, but why not just crack out your old 21st Century Schizoid Band albums if you want to hear Collins and Jaksyzk play those classics?

What the band does well is give a sense of unity to the diverse Crimson back catalogue. There is this almost steampunk sound the line-up brings across piece, uniting the likes of “Larks 1”, “Pictures of a City” and “VROOOM”. At best, we get some solid performances: “The ConstruKction of Light” and “The Letters/Sailor's Tale” stood out for me.

If the unity of the band, a certain crispness, is missing, the individuals play well when considered separately. Jakszyk sings well. I'd single out Levin for praise, and why he isn't allowed a greater role in coming up with new material, I don't know.

A great jazz musician once said that music is a reflection of who and where you are. If that is the case, then this King Crimson is about Fripp's comfort. Nothing here challenges our idea of what Crimson can be... which thus means it misses the whole point of being King Crimson.

I am reacting against some overly hagiographic reviews of the album and have written more of negatives than positives. This isn't a bad album. You get some classic Crimson played by some classic Crimson members (plus a fine substitute). If you want a more radical deconstruction of old Crimson numbers, I do recommend the Delta Saxophone Quartet's Crimson! If you want some '70s classics played with more fire, Four Decades and Curtain Call are now available at a reasonable price on iTunes after an earlier Japanese physical release.

Gong @ Kentish Town Forum, Friday 27 November 2009

Gong have played scattered shows since most of the classic line-up re-united in 2006, but they have stpped up activity this year with a new album, 2032, the first to bring together Daevid Allen and Steve Hillage since 1974's You, and then a supporting tour.

I saw the band last year at the South Bank Centre and tonight's show was much the same. Everyone impressed me: the rhythm section of Mike Howlett on bass and Chris Taylor on drums was powerful and drove the music on. Allen was the same as ever, and in good voice. Gilli Smyth has slowed down a fair amount, as she glid across the stage, but her vocals are undiminished. Miquette Giraudy was clearly having lots of fun, dancing around, air-guitaring behind Hillage. They were having fun, and we were having fun in the audience. And I've not mentioned Theo Travis yet: another strong performance, covering Didier Malherbe's parts well as needed, more than capable of being the lead instrumentalist in places.

The big difference on last year was the inclusion of new material in the set. I quite like 2032 as a CD, and I thought the 2032 material worked very well in context. It was a thoughtfully constructed set, with plenty of classics later in the set, and a nice wind-down encore.

The Steve Hillage Band, i.e. 4/7s of Gong, opened with some classic Hillage solo tunes. I first saw Hillage and Giraudy live as System 7 at Glastonbury Festival, some time in the 1990s. To be honest, I preferred that set to this one. It was certainly well played tonight (and Howlett/Taylor impressed again) but I'm just not as much of a fan of early solo Hillage.

The main downside of the evening was the Kentish Town Forum. It's architecture and lack of seating downstairs tends to produce a very crowded area in front of the stage, and a terrible view further back. Maybe I wouldn't have minded that 10 years ago, but I'm getting old. I wanted a nice relaxing seat!

Age affects bands as well as audiences, and Gong make for an interesting comparison with Yes here. Yes fans regularly lament their band's age, with Howe, Squire and White all in their early 60s, yet Gong are performing with Smyth age 76 and Allen, 71. OK, the other band members are all under 60 (Hillage and Howlett are late 50s), but Gong show that prog rockers can perform into their eighth decade. Meanwhile, while some of the band members are older than Yes, many of the audience members are much younger than for Yes. While the Gong crowd had their share of middle-aged, there were youngsters too, far more than I saw at the recent Yes show. There's something about the Gong cult appeal that seems to keep bringing a steady trickle of new fans.

Yes @ The Hammersmith Apollo, Tuesday 17 November 2009

It's been about 5 years since I last saw Yes... and this was my girlfriend's first Yes show. I've seen Steve Howe numerous times of late, with Asia and his Trio. I've seen Squire with The Syn. I've seen Jon Anderson solo and a show with Rick Wakeman. I've even seen Trevor Horn's band The Producers playing “Owner of a Lonely Heart”. But not Yes and not the controversial new line-up.

I've read hundreds of reviews of shows by the new band, hundreds of screens of online discussion about whether they should be called Yes, whether they should have taken this route, who's to blame for this or that… I've listened to a few boots too, but this was my first opportunity to actually judge for myself.

The last time I saw Yes, sort of, was a line-up with Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Alan White, Trevor Rabin and Geoff Downes at the Produced by Trevor Horn event. I very much enjoyed the performance, but what I was seeing did not feel like a real band. It came across as it was, a line-up assembled for a charity performance. This new line-up, with Benoît David and Oliver Wakeman, they felt like a real, viable band. I don't know quite how to describe it, but whatever the (many, many) arguments online, they convinced me that they are Yes. And they gave us a performance that is comparable to the Yes shows I've seen in the past (my first live Yes experience having been the Union tour).

Not only did they feel like a real band, but they looked happy. Like Howe on recent Asia and Trio shows, like Squire in The Syn at their 2005 London show, and unlike the 2004 Yes shows with Jon and Rick, the band at Hammersmith looked pleased to be there and to be there with each other.

I can, in theory, worry about the lack of new material (there was nothing played that was written since my girlfriend was born), or that for most of the set only two of them had played on the original recordings (for only three songs was the majority of the recording band now on stage), but we enjoyed a great night with great music. And the audience cheers were biggest for the much-played oldies.

On boots, David sometimes sounded quite like Anderson to me, yet oddly live he didn't sound at all like him. He was hitting the notes, but with a distinctive voice. And I just do not get the critiques that he looks or acts like Anderson on stage. His stage moves could be a little hokey at times, but they were all his own. That distinctive voice, there's a certain Quebecois squeaky quality that comes out on occasion, but he sang well and he shined on “Heart of the Sunrise”. My girlfriend argued he was closer to early '70s Jon Anderson than Jon Anderson is now.

The other new boy – if I call someone in his late 30s that! – was Oliver Wakeman. He impressed me, particularly after several negative reviews. Ignore the complaints you've heard about his stage presence. Oliver is not an ostentatious player, but he was mostly a good player, more so perhaps on material not originally played by his father. He brought Downes' parts on the Drama tracks to life, he was great with Kaye's part on “Astral Traveler”. And he's got better sounds than Rick. I'd reserve some criticisms: I felt he didn't get Kaye's feel on “Yours is No Disgrace” and the girlfriend complained he made mistakes on “South Side of the Sky”.

Again, ignore the negative reviews about Alan White. Maybe the band took several dates to get into their stride on this tour, but White's playing was fine in Hammersmith. Where you should listen to the reviews is with Steve Howe. Like they all say, he is on fire: passionate, inspired playing throughout. He is even enjoying “Owner of a Lonely Heart”; at the previous show in Birmingham, he described 90125 as “a great album”!

That leaves Chris Squire, who was... well, Chris Squire. He plays so many complex bass parts effortlessly, even the likes of “Machine Messiah”, a piece he's complained was difficult to re-learn. His singing was to the fore. That said, the biggest thing that would have improved the whole evening would have been a ban on alcohol! There was a bit of stumbling and slurring from Chris that I'm guessing was connected to whatever was in his cup. And no booze would have made for a better viewing experience without half the audience constantly getting up and down to buy more beer, or to piss away the previous batch!

Overall, this was comparable to other Yes shows I've seen. A friend at the show said this was the best he'd seen them play in 10 years. I wouldn't say that: I'm going to stick with Masterworks (2000) as my favourite tour. But I've seen weaker Yes shows than this. My occasional flatmate and I were sitting in almost the same spot in the Hammersmith Apollo on the Open Your Eyes tour (March 1998), and this was the better show. That might just be down to the mix, which was mostly good this tour, although I'd echo the common complaint that David and O. Wakeman could be a bit higher.

To be honest, yes, I would prefer Anderson's vocals. However, despite some comments Anderson has made in interviews, I just do not believe he is fit enough to sing at that volume, for that long, on this sort of tour schedule. Maybe some compromise arrangement would have been possible if the parties were getting on better, but the reality still appears to me that a tour like this just is not possible without a replacement singer. To be honest, I would prefer Igor Khoroshev's keys, but Oliver impressed me more than I expected. This is Yes; this show convinced me.

(But I can't see how they could lose Howe or Squire and keep going.)

Yes @ The Hammersmith Apollo, Tuesday 17 November 2009: Part 2

The show song by song:

Siberian Khatru: As always, and this is a perennial complaint, the band took a song or two to get going. The mix was still improving through “Siberian Khatru” with David far too quiet. The performance was so-so.

I've Seen All Good People: It feels like an odd position to be playing “I've Seen All Good People”, second on the set. “All Good People” works well as a closer or an encore, but as a way of introducing the band? And I still wasn't quite convinced by the new line-up at this point, worried my girlfriend would not enjoy her first Yes experience.

Tempus Fugit: here was the first “new” song, “new” only in the sense of not being a regular in the set and new to me, I've never heard it live before. By now, things had come together. The band were in good spirits and they played tightly.

Onward: “Onward” feels odd in this context; its balladry makes it quite unlike the other songs in the set. The Drama songs fit in very well with the Fragile material; even “Owner of a Lonely Heart” is not as different. Still, it was a good performance; Howe most of all.

Astral Traveller: A great performance, Howe and Wakeman both shone. However, the drum solo did nothing for me; it just seems pointless!

And You and I: The band were well in their stride by now: another strong performance.

Yours is No Disgrace: As ever, a good excuse for Howe to go crazy!

Steve Howe solo: A fantastic performance of “Corkscrew” began Howe's solo slot. I think of the piece as “Countryside” (released as a bonus track on Tormato) and Howe's performance made me wish for a full band version of this song. Next was “Sketches in the Sun”, another lovely performance.

Owner of a Lonely Heart: Howe introduced this tune explaining the band had done it “while I was away doing something else”. With his Trio and the cover versions in Asia's set, Howe is becoming a keen interpreter of other people's material, and he does it well, with gusto. Howe was having fun at being an 1980s guitar god with some great solos.

Machine Messiah: Another highlight, even if they had to extend the intro when Squire was late to come in.

South Side of the Sky: Those great songs, they just keep on coming. Oliver Wakeman was good on the piano section. However, as in the early '00s, I'm not convinced by the trading solos at the end and here Wakeman's work was disappointing.

Heart of the Sunrise: The opening remains effectively a Squire solo spot. Overall, another highlight.

Roundabout: A good performance, but forgive me if I find it too familiar.

Starship Trooper: A good closer and a rousing finale.

The show, as with most on this leg, is available to buy on MP3. I got it at the venue straight afterwards (with the last few songs available for download afterwards). It's a nice souvenir, if no Yessongs. Like the show, it suffers from an uneven mix at the beginning (Squire's vocals are almost louder than David's on “Tempus Fugit”), but it's good to have some of these performances preserved, like Howe's take on “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and “Astral Traveller”.