The Official Yes Thread

[lonestar]

Show time tonight. Note to others, the telecast was postponed to a later date in the tour which is unannounced as of now. Some pics were posted of the Seattle show, very cool looking set up...





Can't wait to see CTTE for the sixth time live.

[Orbert]

Well dude, you definitely have better seats than me and will be having a better time, because the AXS TV live broadcast has been cancelled.  The official reason is "personal issues" or "personal reasons" or something.  Speculation on the YesFans boards is that it either has to do with the recent death of Geoff Downes' daughter, or the fact that Yes simply is not feeling like a show this early in the tour should be broadcast live.  The concert is going forward, as Geoff said it would, but embarassing yourself in front of a live audience is bad enough; embarassing yourself in front of millions on a live broadcast is just a bad move.  Even if the early shows aren't cancelled, I'm sure Geoff's downtime cut into the rehearsal time.

Yes has a history of basically rehearsing as they go.  Sure, they've rehearsed the songs, but there's a shitload of material, a new singer, and a keyboard player who hasn't played a lot of this stuff before.  There are individual songs which they've never played live at all.  I understand the excitement and wanting to get the word out, and therefore broadcasting a show early in the tour so as to hopefully generate more sales for later, but a show from later in the tour would almost certainly be a better performance.

That stage does look pretty cool.  Very clean, very modern.  No Roger Dean floating balloon scenery.  From what I've heard of Jon Davison, he's a better singer and a better match for Yes (not necessarily the same thing) than Benoit David.  Yes has been derided for dumping Benoit when he couldn't tour, seemingly similar to what happened with Jon Anderson, although the situations really are different.

Anyway, have a great time, and remember to give us a review!  ♫♫

[lonestar]

Will do man, I was just checking out a couple clips from the Seattle show on Sunday, they seem to have it pretty together and tight so far.

[lonestar]

As usual, Yes didn't leave me wanting. The setlist we all know was incredible, the three albums were played chronologically, with a Roundabout encore. Downes, Squire, and White were solid. Howe was his usual god like self. Davison surprised the crap out of me. During the busier songs, he kinda fit in, and played the part, but in the more mellow songs, specifically Turn of the Century, Awaken, and the I Get Up/I Get Down part of CTTE, he fucking nailed it.

[Mladen]

That sounds awesome, I'll look for some videos. 

[lonestar]

Here's the one decent one I got of the I Get Up part....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsEc7MpbtjQ


And some still shots....

Steve busting on everything...


Chris with the triple neck during Awaken...

[Orbert]

Wow!  Now I'm even more bummed that they cancelled that TV broadcast.  Nice job by Geoff on the keyboards, from what I could hear.  Too bad your view of him was blocked.  I'd've been bummed.  Unless you pay for "obstructed view" seats, you should at least be able to see all five guys on stage.

[lonestar]

Yeah, I wasn't too happy about that either, but that was what was available at the time. The tickets went real fast.

[countoftuscany42]

^im kind of surprised the tickets went so fast, considering they were just in san jose last fall and i was able to get great seats nearly two weeks before the show.  there didn't seem to be as much demand at the time.  maybe its just because of the 3 albums this tour has more appeal.

[lonestar]

I'm pretty sure that was the case. I bought mine two months before hand, and the floor was sold out, and I was delegated to the upper corner of the balcony.

[ytserush]

Wow. Sorry to hear about Geoff's daughter. I can't even imagine.

Glad you had fun at the show.



My audio fidelity gold CD of Close To The Edge (Along with gold Rush's Counterparts) came in eariler this week so I hope to get an uninterupted listen to that and see how if compares to the 1994 Joe Gastwirt remaster. Kinda have to keep the Rhino remaster around for the bonus tracks unfortunately.

[Mladen]

Wow. Sorry to hear about Geoff's daughter. I can't even imagine.

Same, had no idea about this. My thoughts are with Geoff.

[Orbert]

So Yes issued an official statement, and it's pretty much what I figured.  They continued with the show, because they didn't want to disappoint the fans.  Going forward with the live TV broadcast was another matter, and they didn't think that was a good idea.  They specifically mention Geoff, and how this tragedy so close to the beginning of the tour has greatly affected him and everyone in Yes.  They didn't specifically say it, but obviously Geoff had less rehearsal time than the others, and of the four instrumentalists, he had the most new material to learn.

On the YesFans boards, there's a lot of shit going on (as usual) regarding this.  Some people are actually bitching about how there's no excuse for not being prepared for a show.  It's your job, no excuses, not fair to the fans, blah blah blah.  Even the death of a child is no excuse for doing a crappy job at work.  Holy Shit!  Seriously?  That place used to be so cool.  Now it's full of old, cranky, bitchy people.  Like me, only worse and all the time.

Anyway, reviews are mixed but overall to the positive side.

[Pols Voice]

It totally makes sense to cancel the broadcast in light of Geoff's tragedy.

I've been to Yesfans several times over the years, and it just gives me a weird vibe. Too many subforums and burned out hippies.

[Orbert]

Yeah, the vast number of subforums, and subforums within subforums, is daunting.  Eventually, I just gave up.  I mostly use the "New Posts" and "3 Days Posts" buttons.  Whatever's new, I'll see.  I don't have to go digging into each subforum.  In fact, that the same way I navigate all message boards, and I think I do it that way because of YesFans.  So something good came out of it anyway.

[Pols Voice]

I guess since I never signed up for Yesfans, I don't have that New Posts option. But really, having a subforum for each album? That's just outrageous.

[Orbert]

When I first signed up there, I think it was over 10 years ago, there was a lot more traffic.  We'd discuss and debate every song on every album.  Side projects, live albums, solo albums.  Then there are all the "General" forums.  TV, movies, politics.  It seems ridiculous and unwieldy now, but at the time it made sense because there was probably at least three or four times the traffic there is now.  Now, it's reached the point where pretty much everything has been discussed to death.

Remember when DTF had a separate forum for each album?  Or maybe it was a separate one for each of the last two, then all the others.  Something like that.  If there's a lot of traffic, it makes sense.  But Yes has a lot of albums, so it's kinda dumb that most of the individual album subforums sit idle.  That wasn't always the case, though.

[Pols Voice]

With more traffic it does make more sense. I didn't know DTF did a similar thing, so sorry if I called DTF outrageous. Yes does have more albums than DT, though, and Greatest Hits albums or lesser live albums probably never needed their own forums.

And what about EVERY concert getting its own subforum? Seems excessive. Anyway, I'll stop bashing Yesfans now.

[lonestar]

Yesfans was the first forum I signed up for. I lasted about a week there before getting bored.

[Orbert]

When was this?  In the mid 2000's it was a pretty awesome place.  Then there was a big falling out between some of the higher profile people and a bunch of really cool people left.

[lonestar]

Oh, this was only like three years ago, right before I joined DTF. I think it was more that DTF was a better fit for me than Yesfans.

[Orbert]

I can see that.  It's been at least five years since YesFans was any fun.  When Yes had their big dry spell before Fly From Here, there was nothing to talk about except rumors, and tons of baseless speculation (and some not-so-baseless speculation) about whether or not Jon or Rick would be back, and why.  People got bored and left, and those who stayed ended up fighting a lot, because that's what bored people do.  It's really sad, 'cause Tim's a pretty cool guy (he posted here for a while) and his site has pretty much gone to shit, at least compared to how it used to be.

[Orbert]

Peter Banks
1947-2013

Note from the Edge is reporting that Peter Banks, the original guitarist for Yes, has died.  Not a lot of details yet.

Sure, he was replaced by Steve Howe on the third album and many people never gave him a second thought after that, but the fact remains that we may not have had any Yes music at all had it not been for Peter Banks, and his work on the first two Yes albums is pretty damned good.

R.I.P., Peter.   

[Pols Voice]

Oh no...

Rest in peace, Peter.

[lonestar]

Rest in peace Peter

[Zydar]

Sad news. I'm going to listen to the first two Yes albums tonight in honor of him.

[Mladen]

Rest in peace, Peter Banks.

[Perpetual Change]

Ah, man. I just got the debut on vinyl over the holidays. It's absolutely awesome, guitar work included. It's so psychedelic and cool sounding.

[ytserush]

Peter Banks
1947-2013

Note from the Edge is reporting that Peter Banks, the original guitarist for Yes, has died.  Not a lot of details yet.

Sure, he was replaced by Steve Howe on the third album and many people never gave him a second thought after that, but the fact remains that we may not have had any Yes music at all had it not been for Peter Banks, and his work on the first two Yes albums is pretty damned good.

R.I.P., Peter.   

Very sad news. I just spun his Instinct album last week.



I've never spent any time on any Yes messageboards, but a few of the Rush messageboards used to be the same way. Many of the detractors may have moved onto Facebook or somewhere else. Not nearly as much traffic, but it seems to be a bit more civil.

[El Barto]

Awesome show tonight. I didn't have particularly high expectations after what people thought about the last tour with that Benoit fellow, but they really blew me away. Davidson was a great fit. Excellent stage presence and sang wonderfully. Also helped that we had great seats. And strangely, it was one of the loudest shows I've seen in ages. Go figure.

[FreezingPoint]

Got this last week:



It was a bit expensive, but it is one of my favorite Yes albums, and I thought it would be nice to add it to the collection. Still missing a couple, and still angry that I didn't pick up Fly From Here when it was released. Oh well. I heard a rumor that they might be releasing Talk on vinyl next. Might have to get that too.

Sounded pretty good, same as the CD really, but it was a good listen. Kind of wish that they would have put some of the other album artwork (or maybe I'm thinking of the Symphonic Live artwork).
I could do without the whole "Limited Edition Colored Vinyl" thing though. Doesn't really mean too much to me.

[Nel]

Looks real nice, dude. 

[Orbert]

Pretty cool!

As you might imagine, I have a pretty nice collection of original Yes vinyl, but nothing recent.

[FreezingPoint]

Looks real nice, dude. 

Thanks!

Pretty cool!

As you might imagine, I have a pretty nice collection of original Yes vinyl, but nothing recent.

Cool! Definitely a good collection to have.

We've got everything up to 90125, and a couple of live ones, but nothing past that besides Magnification. I know Big Generator is On vinyl, but I am not sure what was made past that. ABWH perhaps? I will have to look into it.

[Mosh]

Didn't Fly From Here have a vinyl release? I vaguely recall seeing one.

Slowly building my Yes vinyl collection. Picked up Fragile a couple weeks ago for a dollar, not a bad deal. Just need CTTE and I'll have all the "classics".