First, RIP Peter Banks
Lost in my preparation for SxSW, I noticed but forgot to blog the passing of the original guitarist from Yes, Peter Banks.
The latest incarnation
Months ago, my friends Ron and Alissa, got me this ticket. I had always been a Yes fan growing up, and had seen them multiple times prior to 1993, the year I moved to Austin. In fact, this is the first time I have seen Yes, since the Union tour.
To me, it's not really Yes without Bill Bruford, and a lineup without Jon Anderson on vocals is at the very least, suspect. I didn't mind the Drama lineup, but I was never a big fan of the 90125 era.
Band Personnel
For this tour, the Yes lineup would be:
- Jon Davison - vocals
- Chris Squire - bass
- Steve Howe - guitar
- Alan White - drums
- Geoff Downes - keyboards
Jon Davison was the only newbie in the lineup, but all reports indicated that he sounded eerily close to Jon Anderson, when he sang.
Set List
The premise of this tour was for the band to play three Yes albums in their entirety. For our show they were played in this order:
- Close to the Edge
- Going for the One
- The Yes Album
Encore
- Roundabout
The performance
Honestly, there were some problems with this band, particularly with the tempo. I'm not sure if the root of the problem was that the band was under rehearsed, or that there were monitoring problems. Throughout the night, it never seemed like Howe or Downes were on the same page as the rhythm section of White and Squire.
It seems I expected more from this show than the band was able to deliver. Hopefully they'll get this worked out before the end of the tour.
The night ended mercifully with Roundabout.
