As a friend of Tom Brislin, I may be biased in saying this, but he really did a bang-up job on the keyboards that night. He is an animated performer in his own right, and the fact that he so faithfully rendered (while creatively interpreting, at some junctures) the Yes music, was just amazing.

Thank you for the side-stage passes, Tom . . . it was really cool to have you, Squire, and White sign my Fragile LP. A night to remember forever.

Just let me say........this ranks right up their with some of the best Yes concerts I have been to. "Gates", "Ritual", and "In The Prescence Of" are three of the best sounding songs I have ever heard any band ever perform. Simply a perfect sound with these 3 songs. The rest of the show was not perfect....only great.

Bands that were big in the 70's and 80's don't die or fade away, they just drag in 40 and 50 year olds that want to recapture their glory days of their 20 and 30's. The band may look old, and the clothes they wear may resemble something that would be found in the closet of a fashionably challenged senior citizen, but the music remains the same...

Ok, here goes. It's been awhile since I've reviewed a concert for anyone, in fact, the last review I did was for the Nine Inch Nails/David Bowie escapade from four years ago so I may be a little rusty.

The setup:
Yes played last night at the Mann Music Center in West Philadelphia with the Mann Orchestra. Take the best of Beirut and Belfast and drop it around a park with a music venue and you have the Mann. The stage setup had the band in front of a plexiglass deal which housed the orchestra. Very Mettalica like. The concert started with the orchestra jumping into some orchestra song. This lasted about two minutes until the band wheeled their walkers, er, strolled out onto the stage. The Yes lineup is Jon Anderson(the cosmos,the stars, and everything), Chris Squire (spandex and all), Steve Howe, Alan White, and some high school looking kid on keyboards. I couldn't believe my eyes, the kid on keyboards literally looked as if he got off the school bus and came right to the concert. I swear I saw him carry ing an Eastpack filled with books.

The costumes:
Jon Anderson looked like a cross between a not-completely-dressed Bozo the Clown and a misguided karma sutra wannabe in his baggy red clown looking pants with gold circles and his oversized purple meditation shirt. He still sports his half beard/half goatee on his mug. Of all the Yes players (besides Doogie Houser on the keyboards) he has aged the years the best. Steve Howe wore what could almost be mistaken as a leopard print silk shirt with flowing black pants. Man, does he look ancient! He reminded my of Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future without the snow white hair: "Marty, I need a charge of 1.21 gigawatts shoved up my ass immediately so I can play this guitar!!!!". He can still play though. Jeesh he's good. Alan White. What can I say? Stay off the drugs and crap and you don't age so much. Still looks like he did on the Union tour. Just a little grayer. He had a non-descript outfit. Chris Squire. What the F? This guy still wears spandex!!! Dude, that went out in the 80's bro just about the same time your waistline went out. To compliment this somewhat archaic wear was the standard black flowing jacket (it was 85 degrees in that place last night!). But it wasn't quite here where Chris excelled. No, it had to be the black cut-off shit-kicking boots that Chris brandished with the rolled down white socks!! Yup, white. Hell, he looked like he was trying out for Olivia Netwon John's 'Let's Get Physical' video! Doogie Houser (aka Mike or Tom somethingorother from New Joisey) wore what any typical 17-year old would wear to school: Jeans, some sort of shoes, and a long sleeve rugby looking shirt. Uh, kid, get with the times, where is your spandex?? It was like the segment of the Electric Company where they have the four boxes with a kid in each and the annoying shrilly song playing in the background 'One of these kids is not like the other' but in this case it was 'One of these kids is not like the other geriatric f's up there on stage'. Doogie played very well. I was impressed with his ability. He's no Rick Wakeman but he held his own. In fact he dropped his Trapper Keeper with the Britney Spears stickers on it onto the stage. This was just before his voice cracked like Bobby Brady during Ritual (sha nah nah nah nah nah nah, shA nAH naH N@H!; just kidding, he did fine).

The seat:
I was 12th row right center. I was so close I could see the N'Sync pin on Doogie Houser's shirt.

The Concert:
After we all played 'Guess who's the worst dresser?' the band jumped into Close to the Edge with the or

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great to be with you. It's so hard to believe you guys. You send so much energy here. It's incredible. We'd like to..uh do a couple of new songs for you. We just..uh finished mixing an album only a couple of weeks ago. The album is..uh called 'Magnification' and..uh very simply the idea is to magnify everything that is good around you so that everything within will be magnified and everything will be kinda cool Okay. We're going to do a song that is about the idea that..uh you shouldn't beat yourself up too much. What's the point eventually they say. You other side of the coin. Can't take love for granted. The song is called 'Don't Go'.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh..those..uh this time couple was three months ago now when we were working on the album, Alan White would come in. Here he is Alan White. He come in play like Manioff for an hour and then he would start playing the piano. Sorry. [???]. And he started playing this..uh sorta lovely melody, we, I started writing, singing a song. Chris had a part and everybody sorta joined together and so within a three hours we've written this song and..uh we decided in those days to call it 'Deeper' and..uh Alan would come by one day say "You know we should really call this song 'In the presence of'" and I would said "In the presence of what Alan?" "No I said no no 'In the presence of'" and so that's what it's called.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'd like to introduce you William Straumburg and the symphony orchestra here. These guys are absolutely wonderful. They get the change to do an afternoon rehearsal and they jump right into the middle of us playing. So it's kinda fun especially when we do the next song because we decided were going to do this adventure. Keep it going with the idea of the symphony sound as well as what we do into the idea of 'Gates Of Delirium".

Jon Anderson:
Leave you..I'd like to leave you in the capable hands and fingers, guitars styles and tap dancing of Mr. Steve Howe.

Jon Anderson:
Steve Howe.

Steve Howe:
Alright. Thank you very much. [???]

Jon Anderson:
That is one that just gets better and better. [???] We'd like to do a song..uh I thought that we've done this song for quite a while, it's..uh an album we made..uh..um up in Switzerland that's were we were. In Switzerland many years ago and..uh this is a song. I was writing this song on the way down to the studio sorta driving with my guitar [???]. Trying to figure out the chords. Of course very slow driving in Switzerland, very slow. So..uh this song came out as..uh the idea of when you wake up its the first of your life isn't it? Everyday. Sorta thing. Song is called 'Wondrous Stories'.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. Thank you.

Jon Anderson:
Woo! Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. No matter how many times..uh we play the next song. It's always a treat to be able to perform this song for you.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So wonderful. You are so wonderful. Thank you. Quick introduction on keyboards Tom Brislin all the way from New Jersey. [???]. It was about..uh just a few months ago I came home one day and my wonderful soul mate wife Jane she was playing this piece of music so loud in the house. It freaked me out. You know I said "You like this piece of music?" and she said "I love this piece of music". She was singing every word and it was just so, for me very touching very powerful so a dedication to Jane and the piece of music was 'Ritual'.

Jon Anderson:
Once more for William Straumburg and the symphony orchestra here. Want to take this..uh opportunity to thank you all for coming along this evening. We really appreciated it so much. A little dedication to some long time friends who....uh our sound system. We've been with these guys for over, nearly thirty years..uh Roy Clair and the sound system crew. [???]. Litiz Pennsylvania and there's Michael Tate. Our long friend and companion. Again thank you all for coming along. We're going to sing this song together and half way we're going to get up and dance a little bit. In the key of.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you Philadelphia, thank you so much.

Steve Howe:
Philly, this one is for Roger Dean.