Yes "Heaven & Earth" . . . Yes in Limbo?

Yes is a band that has had more ups and down than an elevator operator.   However, since their 70’s heyday, and brief resurgence in the early 80’s, Yes has released a string of albums that have left many Yes fans heading to used-CD shops to trade in their copies of “Union “ and “Open Your Eyes” for grass (I mean gas) money.   “Fly From Here,” released in 2011, hinted at the kind of cohesiveness, vitality, and sense of adventure that Yes conjured up so effortlessly in days past.  However, the absence of the inimitable Jon Anderson on that record left many die-hard Yes fans feeling more disgruntled than Judge Judy.  Nevertheless, for most critics and fans “FFH” was viewed as a return to form.

Yes’ follow-up, “Heaven & Earth” is proving to be a much more controversial affair.  Some reviews have been so caustic that I fully expected the new Yes material might sound like an acapella duet featuring Ted Nugent and Yoko Ono.  Mercifully, the new music sounds better than it really is.

Yes used to make music with “structure and vision,” to borrow a phrase from the philosopher Bill Martin.  They created epics like “Close to the Edge,” a four piece movement (“Tales From Topographic Oceans,”) and multi-part suites like “And You and I.”  Scholars and music aficionados commended Yes for “painting pictures with sound,” utilizing the sonata form, and for being pioneers in using rock instruments to create an orchestral impact.

The guiding force behind this brash, visionary, and musical artistry was that Napoleon of music, Jon Anderson.  Yes contained many important elements, but it was Anderson who steered the band towards its most ambitious, unified, and genuinely aesthetic creations, works like “Close to the Edge,”  “The Gates of Delirium,” “Tales From Topographic Oceans,” and “Awaken.”  Not since 1977 has the band created a true masterpiece.

In 1980, Anderson departed Yes and was replaced -- to the horror of most Yes fans -- by the one-hit pop wonder, Trevor Horn.  Horn’s true talent would lie as a producer, not a front man, but the resulting “Drama” album turned out to be a cohesive, adventuresome, and musically impressive affair.  To be sure, Anderson’s absence hovered over the album like a ghost.  But in retrospect Trevor Horn (and band mate Geoff Downes) supplied some much need spunk after the lackluster “Tormato” from 1978.

Fast forward to 2011.  Following a mixture of illness and acrimony, Jon Anderson finds himself replaced by the Buggles once again.  This time, Horn is in the producer’s chair.  The intent is to salvage a few demo songs that never made it onto “Drama” and expand them to epic proportions.  The result is “Fly From Here,” with a multi-suite title track that is refreshing and nostalgic all at the same time.  Newcomer Benoit David is in fact largely replicating material originally performed by Horn, but as the new lead singer of Yes he is encroaching on territory once staked out by Jon Anderson.  Despite a beautiful voice and a strong performance on “FFH,” Beniot David was viewed by many die-hard Yes fans as a vocal lightweight whose talents were probably best suited for a Broadway touring company making the rounds in dinner theatres throughout the Catskills.

Benoit David left the band following vocal difficulties and was subsequently replaced by yet another tribute singer, Jon Davison.  Davison has deservedly earned high marks for capably handling vocal duties with Yes on tour.  However, reaction to the new album, “Heaven & Earth,” has ranged from lukewarm support to scathing contempt.  Without a doubt, the direction charted by the latest configuration of Yes can best be described as progressive pop.   The album begins, promisingly enough, with the upbeat, catchy, and narcoleptically melodic “Believe Again.”  Davison, makes a strong entrance and sounds great paired with Chris Squire on backing vocals.  The song meanders, but there is a nifty instrumental interlude with Geoff Downes on keyboards channeling his inner Rick Wakeman.  Like many songs on “Heaven & Earth,” “Believe Again” sounds familiar, unchallenging, but appealingly quirky.  Indeed, the feeling throughout the album is laidback, but there are fleeting moments of inspiration too.

“Heaven & Earth” is not the mind-expanding and soul-stirring Yes music of yore.   However, the songs are accessible and melodic; imagine the Phil Collins era Genesis on Xanax and you’ll have an idea of what I mean.  Jon Anderson had a gift for crafting melodies that encapsulate contradictory emotions; think of the hopeful, but mournful Soon.  Davison has a melodic gift too, but his melodies are all bubbly and soothing whereas Anderson’s melodies can touch us to the core.  Still, I find myself liking and enjoying the new material, probably for the same reason I enjoy an old-timers game at the ballpark.

If there is one element consistently missing from “Heaven & Earth” it is friction.  The music is cheery and optimistic, but there is very little edge or tension.   The signature elements that constitute Yes music break through and shine from time to time, most notably Steve Howe’s fretwork.  But most of the time this configuration of Yes adds up to less than the sum of its parts.  Nevertheless, there is some good music to be found on “Heaven & Earth.”  In particular, I find “Subway Walls” to be one of the more interesting and rewarding tracks.  Geoff Downes ignites some sparks with a slow-combustion keyboard solo that leads into some haunting fretwork from maestro Howe.  Not quite the kinetic outburst of yesteryear Yes.  No, Yes doesn’t achieve the heavenly heights this time out, but the music is not exactly mundane either.

Yes -- "Heaven & Earth" Reviewed. "Is it the end of Yes?

Yes, like the London Symphony Orchestra, is an institution with a revolving line-up.  Nevertheless, some members, notably Jon Anderson, have made such an indelible impression that is hard to think of Yes as existing without him.   No matter the strengths of “Fly From Here,” or “Drama” for that matter, the absence of Anderson hovers over any project involving the remaining elements of Yes.  Put simply, his voice, lyrical approach, and artistic vision elevated Yes’ best music to a level no other configuration of the band has come close to matching.

“Heaven & Earth” is the second album in row from the band going by the name of “Yes,” which doesn’t feature the inimitable Anderson.   Squire & company’s decision to head in a decidedly popish direction isn’t likely to endear the album with a certain segment of die-hard fans, who understandably long for something grand, ambitious, and genuinely aesthetic.  Nevertheless, “Heaven & Earth” is an album suffused with the signature Yes sound, many inspiring moments, and some outstanding instrumental passages.  True, some of the tunes have a simplistic sing-song quality, but I find the music consistently veers off in interesting directions.  “In a World of Our Own” is Beatleseque, Howe’s upbeat “It Was All We Know” seems reminiscent of the band America, and the intro to “Subway Walls” has a faux-classical sound one might expect from ELO.  This is music that feels familiar, not challenging, but the music often defies expectations too.

“Subway Walls” is probably the most progressive track on the album.  The tune features a slowly-smoldering keyboard solo from Geoff, which leads into a haunting guitar passage from Howe.   The pace seems deliberately low-key, compared to previous Yes outbursts.  But it is effective nevertheless.  The same can be said for the album as a whole.  “Heaven & Earth” is pop sprinkled with progressive touches.  Yes-light, perhaps, but “Heaven & Earth” is hardly the end of the world – or Yes, for that matter – that some musical prophets have proclaimed.

Yes -- "In a World of Our Own" Reviewed

For almost forty years, Yes has been a band living in the shadow of its golden days.  During this time, Yes fans have hoped, mostly in vain, that the group could rekindle the musical magic they achieved in their 70’s heyday.  There have been bright spots along the way – the surprising spunk and cohesiveness of the underrated “Drama” album, the fresh accessibility of “90125,” and the revitalized energy of “Fly From Here” – and more than a few cloudy spots too (think “Tormato,” Big Generator,” and “Open Your Eyes”).

Even before its official release, the latest Yes album, “Heaven & Earth,” appears to be engendering hostility and contempt among critics and self-proclaimed die-hard fans.  To my mind, most of the online reviews I’ve read have lacked real wit, insight, or even the faintest pretense of objectivity.  I’ve just heard one new song from the album, “In a World of Our Own,” which I find to be a catchy, melodic, and enjoyable listen.   The song is popish in a Beatlesque kind of way with a nice groove and some stylish fretwork from the inimitable Steve Howe.  Nothing earth shattering, but hardly deserving the heaps scorn it has received from some quarters.

It understandable that some fans feel disappointed that Yes has failed to create another classic album.  The two songs I’ve heard thus far, “Believe Again” and “In a World of Our Own” lack the structure and vision of Yes’ best music.  Jon Davison has a sweet and appealing voice, but he lacks the soul and vision of the one-of-a-kind Anderson.   There is little point in comparing “Believe Again” and “In a World of Our Own” to songs like “Roundabout” and “And You and I.”  The latter is music made by a band pushing the envelope; the former is music made by a band playing it safe.  Nevertheless, I would much rather listen to “Believe Again” and “In a World of Our Own” than endure some of the more caustic reviews I've read. 

Yes - "Believe Again" Reviewed

Yes is like the mythological ship of Theseus, which is replaced plank by plank, but seemingly remains the same vessel.  Today, Yes fans are divided over the question whether Yes remains Yes without the visionary lyricist and vocalist, the inimitable Jon Anderson.

If an Platonic realm exists, then surely Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman, Steve Howe, and Bill Bruford, the quintet that created the band’s two most seminal works -- “Fragile” and “Close to the Edge”  --  constitute the eternal essence of Yesness.  But wait, doesn’t that leave out drummer Alan White, who has been a fixture in the band for more than forty years?  After all, White belongs in elite company too (and his contribution to “Relayer,” “Going for the One,” and “Tales from Topographic Oceans” is arguably just as important to Yes’ legacy as his predecessor Bill Bruford’s was).
 

The ship of Theseus remains an unsettled paradox.  And so the situation remains with Yes.  None of Anderson’s replacements have met – yet alone exceeded – the artistic standards he set.  Nevertheless, the “Drama” album is musically cohesive and rewarding and Trevor Horn does a decent job on vocals.  Likewise, “Fly From Here” lacks the gravitas of Yes’ best work, but the band sounds fresh, inspired, and full of life.  Moreover, and the album has a thematic unity not seen since Yes’ heyday in the 70’s.  Oh yeah, the much maligned Benoit David does a fine job singing on a record that happens to be one of Yes’ best efforts in decades.

Jon Davison is the latest plank in the Yes ship.  He has deservedly earned kudos for faithfully, capably, and reliably recreating Yes’ best works live on stage.  Now, Yes is set to release its first new album with Davison at the vocal helm.  “Believe Again” is the first taste of the new music and direction the band is charting.  It is a pleasant, uplifting, and accessible song with occasional flashes of inspiration.  There’s a beautiful intro, a nifty musical interlude, and some nice textural keyboard work from Geoff Downes, who sounds like he’s channeling Rick Wakeman.   Davison makes a strong vocal entry and sounds great paired up with Chris Squire.  But the structure, vision, and edge Anderson provided Yes’ best music is missing.  As a result, “Believe Again” meanders and Yes end up sounding like a more accomplished version of REO Speedwagon.  Still, I find the song growing on me and I find it more productive to enjoy the song than engage in futile debates about which line-up is the “real” Yes.  Yes, Jon Anderson was the best vocalist Yes ever had and probably ever will have.  But Yes is like a snake that sheds its skin so as to renew itself. 

Yes at the Borgata (a Review)

It has been thirty years since Yes’ golden age, an era during which they produced classics records such as “The Yes Album,” “Close to the Edge,” and “Going for the One.”  Since that time, the band has weathered commercial ups and downs, line-up changes, and the loss of Jon Anderson, a lead singer with a signature voice, visionary lyrics, and esoteric conceptual ambitions.

Anderson’s unique voice and artistic vision helped make Yes a complete anomaly in rock; a spiritual force that was more about musical excellence, mind-expansion, and cosmic ideas than chart-topping success.  Anderson and Yes split ways several years ago, but the band has continued to tour and record without him.

In 2013 and early 2014, a revamped Yes, led by Jon Davison, embarked on an ambitious tour, playing three of their most iconic albums – “The Yes Album,” “Close to the Edge,” and “Going for the One”-- in their entirety.  The tour concept has proven popular with audiences and a good fit for the band itself, which has sounded precise and energized.  Yes’ final performance featuring this set list was at the Borgata in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Wrapping up the “three album tour,” Yes performed as well as they have in ages.  Jon Davision’s effortless high notes, angelic voice, and hippie demeanor easily conjures up memories of Jon Anderson.  Anderson has an inimitable voice, but Davison clearly sounds comfortable in the vocal stratosphere that so much Yes music demands.  Keyboardist Geoff Downes is fitting into the Yes mix as well.  Downes joined Yes in 1980, replacing the illustrious Rick Wakeman, in what then appeared to be a one-time effort (the vastly underrated “Drama” album and the subsequent tour).  On this night, Downes' keyboard fills in the coda of the rarely-played “A Venture” proved to be a highlight of the evening.  The remaining members of Yes (Steve Howe, Chris Squire, and Alan White) met or exceeded their customary high standards.  In short, the “three album” tour came to a fitting conclusion at the Borgata.  Yes turned in a solid performance of their best music before an enthusiastic audience.  There are ample reasons to believe this lineup will continue to remain a force to be reckoned with.

Free e-book: Yes and Philosophy -- Available Aug 3rd 2013

To help celebrate Yestival on August 3rd 2013 I will be offering all Yes fans a free copy of my e-book "Yes and Philosophy."  To get your free copy you can visit the Amazon website and download the book at no charge on Sat Aug 3rd.  I would ask anyone who enjoys the book to please consider writing a review for the Amazon site.   Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the book.

To see a sample essay please scroll below to "Roundabout: Metaphysics Set to Music."

Link to  book at Amazon (US): Yes and Philosophy

P.S:  Heck, while I'm at it I'm going to make my e-book Socrates in Cyberspace available for free August 3rd.  If you are interested in philosophy of mind then you may want to check it out.  Again, if you enjoy the book I hope you'll consider writing a review for Amazon. 

Roundabout: Metaphysics Set to Music

Forty years ago, the song Roundabout, hit the radio airwaves like a hurricane.  Most rock fans had never heard anything like it before.  Guitarist Steve Howe’s melancholic guitar intro sounded like something Segovia might play, but the classical style prologue was just the beginning of music that seemed space-age and baroque all at the same time. 

Roundabout, however, really blasted off with the introduction of Chris Squire’s phase-delayed bass, a mesmerizing riff that seemed to double back upon itself, like a snake eating its own tail.  Squire played the bass, a traditional back-up instrument, as if it was a lead instrument.  But this was hardly the only element that made the music in Roundabout stand out.  Drummer Bill Bruford’s exotic style owed more to jazz than rock and his percussion was multi-layered by engineer extraordinaire Eddie Offord to hypnotic effect.  And then there was the classically-trained Rick Wakeman contributing florid keyboard runs on a newfangled instrument known as the synthesizer.  Topping everything off was vocalist Jon Anderson, an alto-tenor who often sounded more like a choirboy than a traditional rock singer.  Anderson’s cryptic lyrics and otherworldly vocals imbued Roundabout with a mystic dimension.  Roundabout was the first taste most listeners had of the British progressive rock group known as Yes.

Roundabout raised the bar in rock music.  The musicians that composed Yes were regarded by fans and critics as virtuosos, the highest quality instrumentalists the rock genre had produced at the time.  Roundabout was infused with classical elements, but the song really rocked.  Yes it seemed, were pioneers of a new movement known as progressive rock.  With albums like Fragile, Close to the Edge, and Tales from Topographic Oceans, Yes were among the earliest and most successful groups to use rock instruments to create works of an orchestral length and style.

The visionary head of Atlantic records, the late Amhet Ertegun, once described Yes as a group that painted pictures with sounds.  This is a wonderfully paradoxical notion, but one that captures the mysterious ability of music to conjure up imagery and tap into the imagination.   Classical composers have long harnessed the power of music to represent natural phenomenon and emotional states, but until Yes few rock groups had a rich enough instrumental palette to conjure up such vivid and complex soundscapes.
 

Yes music is pitched to the auditory and visual imagination, but it is also capable of tapping into the abstract and/or philosophical imagination.  Schopenhauer once wrote that “Music is an unconscious exercise in metaphysics, in which the mind does not know it is philosophizing.”  This is a rather astounding thought.  Schopenhauer believed that music was the most authentic and immediate manifestation of the Will, the primal life-force that underlies our phenomenal reality.   In other words, Schopenhauer believed that it is through music that the conscious subject can encounter the mysterious and fundamental energies that underlie all existence.  No wonder Schopenhauer’s spiritual student, Nietzsche, claimed that life would be a mistake without music.

Roundabout is music that has the potential to plug listeners into a cosmic and philosophical state of mind.  It is music rich and enigmatic enough to reward repeated listening and serious analysis.  What exactly is a roundabout?  Anderson claims the lyrics were inspired by a traffic roundabout he encountered on the way to the recording studio, but a literal interpretation of such an evocative and imagistic song need not steer us in such a pedestrian direction, if you’ll forgive the pun.

The novelist Umberto Eco once identified what he called the “poetic effect,” which refers to a quality in texts and works of art that allow them to continue “to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed.”  The lyrics and music of Roundabout exemplify the poetic effect.

In my view, there is a lot going on in the song to suggest that the term “roundabout” refers to a cosmic process symbolized by the mythical Uroboros, the snake that consumes its own tail.  The Uroboros, of course, is one of the most potent images in the mythic imagination.  Artwork and jewelry depicting the Uroboros date to earliest antiquity.  Descriptions of the Uroboros appear in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Plato’s philosophy, and in the Hindu Upanishads.  The Uroboros was a frequently used motif in alchemy; the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung believed the Uroboros symbolically represented the psyche; and the chemist Kekule dreamt of a snake eating its own tail shortly before discovering that the structure of the benzene molecule resembled the Uroboros!  In short, the Uroboros is one of the most fundamental and far-reaching image/ideas in the history of humankind.

Yes fans, of course, are familiar with the Uroboros motif.  To begin with, artist Roger Dean’s famous Yes logo implicitly feeds into itself just as the mythical Uroboros does.  You can see this most explicitly with Dean’s Yes logo on the inner booklet of their latest album, Fly From Here, where the Yes logo is depicted as a snake twisting back upon itself.  But the motif actually crops up a lot in Yes’ work.  For instance, as philosopher Bill Martin notes in his  “Music of Yes: Structure and Vision in Progressive Rock,” Chris Squire’s phase-delayed bass in Roundabout seems to double back on itself, like a snake eating it own tail.  Furthermore, Roundabout is a song that explicitly comes full circle: the ending recapitulates the same acoustic guitar motif that song began with.

What is the philosophical significance of the Uroboros motif?  To begin with, The Uroboros motif seems to represent a central truth about the cosmos:  namely, that life feeds off itself.  The Uroboros devours itself, but in doing so it nourishes itself.  The Uroboros slays itself, but it is reborn in the process.  All mortal beings perish, but their lives feed the process of life.  The wheel of life spins eternally.  Yes actually explored this theme in an early song called Survival, but motif is developed with much greater poetic sophistication in Roundabout.

There is an even deeper way of looking at the Uroboros motif.  Scientists tell us that our Universe began with the Big Bang.  Prior to the Big Bang, time and space presumably did not yet exist.  There was only nothingness.  How can something (the universe) come out of nothingness?  The ancient Greeks believed nothing could come out of nothing.  The idea that the universe arose out of nothingness sounds like a paradox, if not a contradiction, but perhaps we can resolve this paradox by thinking in terms of no-thing-ness (i.e., no things).  At the Big Bang, all that existed was what scientists have called a quantum singularity.  Out of this uniform and entirely undifferentiated state (no-thing-ness) the entire cosmos was born.

Following the Big Bang, matter was formed.  As the universe cooled, sub-atomic particles began to form molecules.  Later, molecules arranged themselves into inorganic compounds.  Still later, simple self-replicating organisms such as bacteria emerged.  After this, single-celled organisms came onto the scene.  Soon, multi-cellular organism evolved.  Today, a highly complex multi-celled organism known as homo sapiens is able to trace the evolutionary path of a universe that has given birth to self-aware creatures capable of investigating their own evolutionary path and origins.  In other words, the path from the Big Bang to consciousness investigating the Big Bang is very much like the snake that twists back to bite its own tail.  As Anderson sings: 

I’ll be the Roundabout

The words will make you out and out.

The Princeton physicist John Wheeler would have appreciated this point of view.  Wheeler advocated something called the Anthropic Principle.  In its strongest from, the Anthropic Principle holds that sentient creatures are necessary for the universe to fully exist.  After all, as Wheeler puts it, “what good would the universe be if no one existed to observer it?  Wheeler’s outlook is shaped by the strange implications of quantum mechanics; particularly the notion that subatomic “particles” can exist in an indefinite state, until they are observed.  In other words, consciousness may be necessary to collapse the wave function of quantum level particles.  That is, Wheeler believed that the relationship between the quantum realm and consciousness was, in his own words, like “a smoky dragon biting its tail.” 

The Anthropic Principle is hard for many scientists to digest because it puts consciousness back at the center of creation.  If the Anthropic Principle is correct, then the emergence of sentient creatures is not just some fluke in an entirely random process of evolution.  Instead, the potential for sentience has been woven into the fabric of the universe all along; that is, sentience is something the universe aims at, even if the route it takes to get there is undetermined and even random.

The Uroboros and the Anthropic Principle would appear to imply a teleological view of nature.  That is, the Universe aims at something; most plausibly self-understanding.  That is, the Universe has evolved creatures capable of representing to cosmos to itself.  As Schelling put it, “we are the eyes and ears of the universe.”  If this view is correct, then consciousness is not a fluke, but an inextricable thread woven into the fabric of the universe.  Anderson echoes this view; in his solo DVD, A Tour of the Universe, Anderson insists that the purpose of life is to seek out the source of our creation.  This is a mystical outlook, no doubt, but it is a view that is in accord with many mystically inclined philosophers such as Pythagoras, Plato, and Schelling, to name a few.

The song Roundabout is a musical journey that travels full circle.  In the end, Roundabout revisits and recapitulates the acoustic guitar motif the song began with.   Musically, the song seems capture the same theme expressed in T.S. Eliot’s famous lines: 

We shall not cease from our exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

Roundabout is music that takes listeners on a journey.  The song raised the bar in rock music by demonstrating that rock musicians could aspire to create serious music with an orchestral impact.  In particular, Yes’ exceptional ability to paint pictures with sound and create a rich sonic landscape listeners can explore and ponder is on full display here.  But Roundabout is not just a musical tour de force; it is also song that kindles the philosophical imagination.  This is not to say that Yes deliberately set out to express philosophical ideas.  Rather, as Schopenhauer noted, music can be an unconscious exercise in metaphysics.  Roundabout is not jut symphonic rock, it metaphysics set to music.

Scott O’Reilly is a freelance writer.  He is the author of Yes and Philosophy: The Spiritual and Philosophical Dimensions of Yes Music.  To learn more about Yes and Philosophy and my other books you can visit my author page at:  http://www.amazon.com/Scott-OReilly/e/B007C7POK0/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1  Contact:( neuroscott@aol.com)

Review: Yes at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester NY July 28th 2013

Yes is a band that has had more ups and downs than an elevator operator.  Albums such as “Close to the Edge,” “The Yes Album,” and “Going for the One” represent the heights of progressive rock, but the group has also had its share of low points too (as bargain bin albums like “Open Your Eyes,” Big Generator,” and “Tormato” demonstrate).  On their 2013 tour, however, Yes is very much a band very much on the upswing.

Yes is celebrating their 45^th anniversary as a group this year.  To mark the occasion the band is performing three of its most popular and critically acclaimed albums (“Close to the Edge,” “The Yes Album,” and “Going for the One”) in their entirety and original running order on tour.  This approach has proven a hit with fans as Yes is playing to capacity crowds and rave reviews.  The acclamation is well-deserved.  Put simply, right now Yes is playing like a well-oiled machine firing on all cylinders.  Epics like “Awaken” and “Close to the Edge” are executed with musical precision, but there is also a freshness, vitality, and soul in the performances.

Newcomer Jon Davison is especially impressive and an exceptionally good fit for the band.  His voice may lack the uniqueness of the inimitable Jon Anderson, but he has a very attractive timbre, an innate musicality, an ease with his upper-register.  Time and again, Davison embellished familiar musical codas with novel inflections in ways that were surprising and inspired.  You’d have to be deaf (or a music critic at Rolling Stone) not appreciate the grace and beauty he added to Yes’ classics.

This is the first time I’ve been at a Yes concert where the crowd was on its feet following each and every song.  However, the band created many spine-tingling moments and the spontaneous applause and standing ovations were more than merited.  As is customary, Guitarist Steve Howe was in superb form.  If there is a more tasteful, imaginative, and dexterous six-stringer out there, then I haven’t heard him.  Geoff Downes may not be the kind of keyboardist to don a cape, but he was excellent throughout.  Indeed, his jazzy improvisation on the overlooked gem, “A Venture,” was a highlight.  The Squire/White rhythm section was crisp, powerful, and dynamic as well.        

Yes as long been ridiculed by critics at Rolling Stone and snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but as the 2013 tour progresses it is clear that Yes will let the music speak for itself.  Right now, as a live act Yes is on Everest.

Review Yes at The Beacon Theatre April 9th 2013

Thirty years ago, Yes was being compared to dinosaurs.  Today, as Yes celebrates its 45^th anniversary, the group is still trudging the musical landscape and showing no sign that they are near extinction.   They released their most successful album in decades last year (Fly From Here), they are embarked on an extensive tour this year, and another new album and world tour appear to be in works for 2014.  On Tuesday April 9^th the group performed at the famed Beacon Theatre in NYC to a sold out and decidedly enthusiastic crowd.  Both the set list and the musical performance came the closest in years to recapturing the Yes magic of yore.

In recent years, some fans have grumbled about slowing tempos, patchy vocals, and the absence of founding lead singer Jon Anderson.   There was little to gripe about on Tuesday night, however, as Yes delved into some of its most complex and ambitious extended works – most notably Close to the Edge and Awaken – with precision and gusto.  The set list included some of their most challenging material, but the band sounded energetic, cohesive, and near the top of their game.

Guitarist Steve Howe was his usual dexterous and inventive self.  Often switching between three or more guitars in a single song, Mr. Howe has a gift for avoiding the obvious and making each solo sound fresh and seemingly off the cuff.  His fretwork on the climatic portion of Siberian Khatru and a show-stopping solo in Awaken showed why he is one of the most admired guitarists around.

Highlights of the evening also included rarely performed tracks such as A Venture and Turn of the Century.  The former is a whimsical, off-beat tune with a jazzy keyboard coda; the latter a gentle ballad featuring exceptionally tasteful Spanish guitar and lilting piano.  In the both instances the interplay between keyboardist Geoff Downes and Mr. Howe was impressive and satisfying.

Indeed, tracks like Wondrous Stories showed just how good the musical interchange is between the various band members.  Here, Jon Davison light, ethereal voice came close to duplicating the magic of the inimitable Jon Anderson.   Drummer Alan White was in fine form throughout the night too.

Chris Squire’s unique bass and fine supporting vocals should be noted too.  Mr. Squire is the only remaining member of the group he helped found 45 years ago.  With his large frame and thunderous bass, Mr. Squire could easily be mistaken for some musical Tyrannosaurus Rex.  But it is in no small measure to his credit that Yes is outlasting the critics and detractors who insisted the days of Yes music were numbered.