I went to this show! I wrote about it on my blog at rheayes.blogspot.com/2007/10/yes-in-new-york-city-10311997.html

Well, I thought that by being lucky enough to snag 2 of the Yesworld seats to the Halloween night show at New York's Beacon Theatre, I'd finally know the answer to that important question: Who gets the best seats in the house?

Things went very smoothly at the box office, my tickets were in an envelope with my name on them. Upon opening them, I saw that we had seats B101 and B102, center orchestra. This put us in the sixth row, just left of center, between Howe and Anderson. Pretty excellent, but still not front row!

No sooner do we sit down, than who plops down right in front of us...Jon's wife!! Apparently even SHE couldn't get front row seats, so I felt a little better. So who DOES get those seats, anyway? And no one else seemed to notice that it was her except us either!

In all seriousness, our seats were excellent, and it was amazing to have Jon's wife right in front of us, it seemed to make the whole show more intimate. We said a quick hello to her but didn't want to become pests, so we left her alone after that. During the whole night, Jon and Jane (is that right?) were doing this great lovebird thing, waving to each other, smiling, and having a great time. She was intensely into the music too!

And of course many thanks to everyone at nfte, yesmag, yesworld and Yes for making these seats available. We were no more than about 20 feet away from the band, and every expression on their faces was clearly visible. These were, indeed, prime seats.

We also had sixth row seats for Thursday nights show (regular ticketmaster seats), but they were on the extreme right, we couldn't see Alan at all, and we were right in front of the PA. My ears have stopped bleeding by now though...mostly anyway.

Also on Thursday, we were able to view some of the elusive YESART! We saw the original designs for the Tales centerfold, and the Tales Yes Logo! Very nice bonus. These were missing tonight.

Besides being the closing show for New York, WNEW-FM was billing tonight's show as their 30th anniversary concert, and before the show, some of the dj's came out and talked a bit, and that got the excitement level up early.

There were also some Halloween props on the stage, and Alan came out wearing THREE HEADS! They had Moe, Larry and Curly on drums during Rhythm of Love, and it was hilarious. I seem to remember Igor having a mask pulled back on top of his head for a while too.

Ok, on to the music ----- Absolutely incredible!!!!!!! Everything was perfect - the mix was great, everyone in the band was "on", the crowd was wild...I just kept thinking to myself..."I can't believe this is really happening".

This band is Yes. The energy, the synergy, they were all connected. The music was flawless, the band was having great fun, and it felt like the old days...only the sound was better!! I've seen them on almost every tour, and can't remember enjoying myself so much as this time. I felt like I was floating 10 feet above the seats all night, the music was truly mystical.

The set was the same as in recent days, so I won't go over it, but if I'm not mistaken, I think they played 2 different parts of Children of Light Thursday and Friday. This is an excellent new piece, btw.

Blasphemy maybe, but I didn't really miss Rick. Igor covered everything so nicely, and added his own touch occasionally, that it sounded just right. He was pretty reserved on Thursday, but really got into it tonight, he was smiling and bobbing up and down all night...I guess the rush of the New York madhouse crowd got him over the hump!

I've seen a lot of comments about Billy, why is he there, etc. If nothing else, he filled out the vocals (Igor too), so the sound was really full. As everyone has mentioned, his guitar was mostly mixed pretty low, but he's got great presence, and we'll find out shortly what contributions he's made to OYE. So give him a chance! Although I will readily admit that