Yes... In Cohasset MA

[PeterG]

Yes - In The Present tour.

In a word... no.


I am saddened to say that I have witnessed the end of an era.
As well as the end of a long, long run of concert attendance. (I have been to every Yes tour since 1977)

Poor Yes, a mere shadow of their former splendor.

The venue was small. The South Shore Music Circus seats about 2300 people although it felt smaller than that. The stage is small and it rotates to give everyone a chance to be in front.

ASIA opened the show and put on a good show. It is always nice to see Carl Palmer. He is still such a powerhouse drummer. (The drum riser was so small that he only had one bass drum and a limited set) It was great to see Steve Howe playing "The Court of the Crimson King".... and Fanfare for the Common Man really rocked. They played the obligatory "Video killed the Radio star" and the ASIA tunes were alright. ...a trip back to the pop 80's. Watching Geoff Downs stretch between his multi-keyboard setup made me laugh... Mr 80's. Remember when you had to do that? Wetton sounded good.

A quick break for a beer and then on to Yes!

I won't review song by song... partly because I didn't write the set list.
I'll review person by person.


Steve Howe: Good Job! playing 'double duty' with ASIA and then Yes. great playing, as usual. To me it looked like he had more 'fun' playing the ASIA gig. He played the Yes stuff alright but seemed to be tossing nasty looks at the other Yes bandmembers when they would miss a cue. (Which was often) HE played a nice solo, acoustic piece... which i didn't catch the name of... seemed a bit annoyed when the crowd started clapping along like some sort of freakin' hoedown. (can't you ever just listen?)

Alan White: His usual playing. Good, solid beat... didn't seem to miss a note (at least when things were missed... it was not his fault)

Chris Squire: First off... can someone buy Grandpa Bass some trousers? Maybe the tight stretch pants were really something in the 80's but now, eeek! Chris was loud. Chris was , more often than not, the cause of the confusion within the band. (Complete Train wreck during Heart of the Sunrise... Smaller wreck during Machine Messiah... Often the recipient of a Steve Howe scowl. He seemed to be having fun though... ... which is more than I can say about...

Oliver Wakeman: When I first saw Ollie, last year, i thought he was still trying to learn the tunes. Now I realize that is not the issue. He has no enjoyment playing in Yes, save for the two brief solos he gets where his playing 'comes to life'. The rest of his playing seems to be 'functional' ...he knows he is supposed to play this run at this point in the song.

Baguette Renault... err... Ben-gay rip-off... err.. Benoit 'Whatever his last name is' aka: Phony Jon. Huh.... watching this dude pretend he is Jon was sad. ...and sadder yet, Chris introduced Benoit and Ollie as "the new members of the band"


I think by next year they will be playing State Fairs and Zoos...

I hope they get top billing over "Puppet Show"

[NorCalKurt]

See my comment on Laudio's review, it would apply here too.

[Yesspaz]

After reading the two reviews, I'm sad. I never got to see Yes.