Fifteen years ago today...Beautiful, hot summer day, and my plans for an out-of-town trip changed last minute. I went to Sewickley to buy a pair of shoes and then remembered Yes was in town. I drove down to the amphitheatre (? - a parking lot with a stage and folding chairs alongside railroad tracks) to try to catch the sound check, but they weren't doing one that day. I walked right into the venue and spent the rest of the afternoon talking to one of the Clair Bros. - just sort of overlooked the buying-a-ticket part. High points: a bird flew onto Igor Khoroshev's live mic shortly after I arrived and serenaded us through the PA for a few minutes; the sound guy repeatedly tried to drown out the freight trains that passed right by the venue during the afternoon with blasts of white noise; meeting Igor & Billy Sherwood during the Alan Parsons Project set. They both had amazingly bloodshot eyes and seemed incapable of uttering much more than a few guttural syllables: I expected them both to be too stoned to play, but Igor proved me wrong. Billy, on the other hand, really came off as a fifth wheel on this tour. Low point (aside from Billy;) the APP was the epitome of underwhelming opening acts. They were about as exciting as watching soil erode.

Odd that the outdoor concert they played on this tour is not mentioned in the tour list. Maybe that is what Jon meant when he said,"Catch you next time".... Here is my recollection of the evening on the river side in Pittsburgh, PA....
@1997 IC LITE outdoor pavillion, Pittsburgh, PA..OYE'S tour(Opener..Alan Parsons Project)
After Alan Parsons's gtr player blew up the right side of the PA with an out of control compessor, Yes came out after the repair. This concert was stange as it had Billy Sherwood and Igor for the first time. They only did one song off the OYE's album, and Chris's bass was huge, as we were right in front of the stage right speaker stack.
stack. However , many classic YES songs were done that I had never heard them play until then. Main attraction were the two great looking babes I saw that turned out to be men in women's clothes..(ahem...)oh well, YES fans...gotta love em!

I wish I'd taken notes on the setlist, because it was in a different order, as well as it least one change I noticed...they played America tonight. The boys were in good form tonight, quite tight, pretty enthusiastic, and the audience was really going nuts. Close to the Edge was ok, but they really need to work on it. Yours is no Disgrace was done quite well tho. One thing that amused me was that the audience seemed pretty cold on Rhythm of Love, but really got into Owner. The mix was very different this time around. Igor came through loud and clear this time, which worked great except for his major screw-up on YIND. He got behind and didn't really catch up until the next verse. Billy also was much easier to hear this time around, and it may be just my perception, but it seemed that he was handling a lot more this time around. One thing that suprised me was the age of the audience. When I saw them last fall, it was mostly older people like me. But this time around there were LOTS of younger people. I think that's really great. This time around they actually did promote the concert, and it showed. The place had to be close to capacity, I saw very few empty seats. Anyway, that's my take, an excellent show....one I'd see five nights a week if I could....but what do I know??

Jon Anderson:
Thank you. 'Rhythm Of Love' Pittsburgh. Thank you so much. We've..uh want to thank you all for coming around this evening. It's great to be with you again. We have been around the world since we last saw you last. Which is kinda cool and..uh many crazy stories but I want start any of them now. Here's a song that we have not done on stage for many years and its..uh all of the sudden lots of fun to do on stage. The song is called..uh 'Yours Is No Disgrace'.

Jon Anderson:
Steve Howe on guitar. Woo! Thank you. Thank you so much. It's sorta..of. We wrote that song..uh in Devon. Beautiful, beautiful place in England and..uh it was a lot of fun in that time of..uh the bands career. I can't believe were 30 years on now. It's amazing to me, to me and..uh one of the great things is going through the songs that we love to play for you and realizing they'd still be here three days time if we did. Which is okay if you want to tour here but, you know, other people have got some lives to live and..uh here's a song that..uh I remember Eddie Offord..uh who was our producer at the time. He was..uh very instrumental in creating the really wonderful sound on..uh this song and it would started out very very simple. We would rehearse the song for maybe..uh you know a couple of days, three or four days and we would really be in the recording of it and..uh all the sudden the studio when very quiet and I heard these sounds so I said 'Eddie, lets start recording now' and this is how it finished on tape.

Jon Anderson:
I'd like introduce you to..uh a new member of the group. He's not a new member anymore. He's been in the band a couple of years now, doing production and helping to write songs. Here's a song that he started writing with Chris and the song was called..uh 'Open Your Eyes'.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. Thank you. I love, I love that tower. Do you love that tower? Over there?, the glass tower? With wonderful wife Jane. We went for a walk by that tower and that's an amazing, amazing structure. It's amazing, wish I would have thought of it. But I didn't. I was thinking the same thing. It's that place were it's really quiet. Really nice place to go. I used to called it 'The Heart Of The Sunrise'.

Jon Anderson:
Chris Squire on bass guitar. Thank you so much. Thank you. We'd like to..uh carry on with a song. We've..uh actually we never..uh done this song on tour before but we started to get into it a few weeks ago in South America when we were down there and it's a song that..uh comes from a time when we were recording..uh we were recording in Switzerland and..uh the music was really, just amazing to to make this kind of music at that time in the bands career and here's a very simple song. I just woke up one morning and..uh wrote this song and it's a song called 'Wonderous Stories'.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Jon Anderson:
Woo! Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. You are wonderful 27 years later. Thank your for waiting. Listening to it again. Here's our keyboard player on tour Mr. Igor Khoroshev.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you. Woo! Alright. Here's a song that..uh is..uh written by by Paul Simon and..uh it's really special songs about the Americas and..uh how America's growing into the 21st century. We're all looking for the true America and..uh it's coming very soon. We believe that. So here's the song it's called 'America'.

Jon Anderson:
Steve Howe on guitar for that.

Steve Howe:
Thank you very much.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. You've been great playing so many different kinds of songs for you. Here's a song that..uh I think you might remember and..uh sing along. Halfway through please stand up and dance the Pittsburgh boogie or whatever you do here. But plenty of it. You know? Plenty of it and it's a song that goes a little bit like..uh. Here it comes.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much thank you. Just want to so your appreciation for one of the greatest drummers in the world, Mr. Alan White here and over to my left Mr. Billy Sherwood from Las Vegas. Were was I? I was somewhere. C'mon.

Jon Anderson:
Do we have time for one more? Do we have time for one more? Okay, here we go.