Larry Haas

Last night my wife, son, and I attended the Columbus show. I have enjoyed the music of Yes since the Fragile album in 1972 but after our son was born later that year, I had little time for music. Consequentially, this is only my second Yes show, the first being the Talk tour in June 1994.

Our seats were in row X, just to the right and a few rows behind the sound board. We had a great view of the stage. Vets (as the venue is commonly called) was about three quarters full. I think it seats about 5,000, so it was a good turnout. It was a very enthusiastic but well behaved crowd with only a few individuals shouting out during Jon Anderson’s dialogs between songs.

I can’t begin to top the superlatives already heaped upon the previous shows on this tour, the show was as good if not better than the reviews that I had read on the Internet. So I won’t even try to provide complete details of the show, I’ll just comment on the differences that I noticed from what I was expecting.

The show began 15 minutes late at 7:45 and ended at 10:20, 10 minutes shorter than most of the previous shows on this tour. The reason was that Soon was completely skipped!! Early in the show, Jon told the audience that he had a touch of the flu and asked us to help with the vocals. His speaking voice was raspy and his singing was just a little short of his usual angelic. I would guess that Soon was just too much to ask of him.

The Steve Howe solo consisted of Mood For A Day, Arada, Second Initial, and Clap; which is two different songs with a new sequence.

Chris Squire played the harmonica for a few seconds in the middle of AYAI.

The Lancaster High School Percussion Ensemble joined the band on stage to augment the percussion during Roundabout. Alan White played a show with this group at the high school a few years ago.

Overall an amazing show. Plus they now had a Yes pin in the merchandise booth which I picked up for $8. Expensive but much less than a T-shirt.

Linda Dachtyl

What a great show!! Seeing Yes in a small venue is wonderful. I will write more when I gather my thoughts, but off the cuff...

Jon had the flu and still sang wonderfully.....

Steve is great....the heart and soul of the guitar chair in the group. I missed Rabin not even one TINY TINY, teeny weeny bit........

Chris....what more can be said???Go Fish go!

Alan....super job, plus his bringing Bruce Gerken's Lancaster High School Percussion Ensemble kids on the stage for the "Roundabout" encore shows how much he truly cares about music education..... what a guy!

Igor.....so soulful and the sounds sound right for a change, not cheesy substitutions as I have heard BOTH Kaye and Wakeman playing in recent tours.

Billy, well, he helps fill out the sound and added some nice vocals.

I enjoyed this concert so much. Don't miss them! Also thanks to YesWorld for 4th row seats. Jane Anderson used MY PEN to sign an autograph;-).....plus no Ticketbastard added service charges.

People sat and listened....none of this "stand up like a fool for half the concert/Freebird mentality"...standing ovations, yes...but then the crowd seated themselves like all people of good taste and manners do when hearing good music.

What a class act! And Hello to Debbie from Opio.

Mike

Very good...no, better yet quite incredible. Probably the 17th time I have been to a Yes concert, and they are in top form.

Howe and Squire were astounding! Anderson was a little horse from a sinus problem, but if he hadn't announced it you'd probably not have noticed. Igor (Ivan?)--played wonderfully, never missed Wakeman. As for Billy Sherwood, I am sure there is a good reason for him being there, I just am really not sure what it is.