Cherokee Blackhorse Wilson

Speaking of Alan drumming and a couple of other things in this post there are some excerpts from a Billy interview I thought would be fun and enlightening.

"Music Street Journal:What's been your biggest Spinal Tap moment?

Billy Sherwood:The biggest Spinal Tap moment was definitely in Poland when were playing a live radio broadcast and within the first three minutes of the set all of the power went out. It was out for fifteen or twenty minutes. It was very funny because usually whenever there is a dilemmma like that, people sort it out really quickly, which gives Alan White a chance to do a drum solo, because there is no power, so it's an acoustic drum solo. The power went out. Alan immediately kicked into gear, and I started realizing that this wasn't going to get fixed very quickly. So, I left the stage and was standing at the edge of the stage, then everybody else left. Alan was there just beating the hell out of the drums for a good five minutes. I started thinking, "this really is going to take a little bit longer than this. How long can he go?" So, I'm looking at my watch and looking at him. He's doing these radical fills and these great rolls. Finally it just kind of ended in a dut, dut, dut, dut, dut.....dut. He put the sticks down and ran off the stage. We stood around for about ten or fifteen minutes waiting for the power to come back on. That was definitely the funniest live Spinal Tap moment I've ever experienced.

Marek Jedlinski

A character in one of Stephen King's novels observes that the excitement of he first-time sexual experience is often lost on the more introspective natures: instead of letting go and enjoying the act, some guys will hold back and just observe themselves and the partner, with slight disbelief at what's unfolding... "oh, so this is how it feels; hey, is it really me doing that?" I found this to be very true about my first-ever experience of Yes live on stage. Perhaps waiting for something to happen for nearly 16 years is the worst spoiler of all; perhaps I am a bit dulled from having heard, hundreds of times, all the songs in countless versions, official and otherwise; but most of all, I think, my experience of the show was more of an observer than a participant. This is perhaps not unusual and not necessarily wrong: I know the music well but I'd never actually been to a live rock show before.

The above will explain, I hope, the nature of my reviews of all the three shows Yes gave in Poland in March 1998. The setlist was basically the same as during the rest of the European shows, and only a slight modification of the American leg of the tour that had concluded in December '97. What can be said about the perfection of And You And I or the dramatics of Heart of the Sunrise that hasn't been said many times over before? This is why, most of the time, I will be concentrating on issues that will appear tangential or anecdotal to some; but these very things were what I was looking for in the shows: the things that I had not, before, seen or known.

There weren't any posters around the Warsaw city center (no booty for me :) but all three shows were sold out all the same. I arrived around noon, and the first glimpse of Yes in real life I had was the sight of the three huge, gray trucks parked, shingle-style, in front of the concert venue, with dimmed yellow Transam Trucking Ltd logos on the sides and a fax number in Sheffield, England on the back. Further on I found one of the two tour buses, parked so close to the "private" entrance that the band could probably just jump into it without ever stepping on the yard. No sight of the band themselves, though - and not until the last show in Poznan.

The venue, "Sala Kongresowa" (which translates into "Congress Hall" though it isn't really) is located on the ground floor of the huge and ugly Warsaw landmark: the Russian-built Palace of Culture. Those who have ever seen a postcard from Warsaw probably saw it already; Americans may be familiar with similarly huge-and-ugly "Cathedral of Learning" in Pittsburgh, PA (and can you think of a starchier name for a university building?) which actually reminded me a lot of the Warsaw Palace. Its ground floor itself hosts several theaters, cinemas, a shopping mall, a large book store, a museum (or two) and finally the semi-round Kongresowa. It was the classiest and smallest of all three Polish venues, holding roughly 15 hundred people. Inside the hall it's all crimson plush and pale marble, stylish, stately and half-comfortable. Looking at the Keys to Ascension booklet, I find that the Warsaw venue bears some similitude to the SLO theater, except the roof in Kongresowa is devoid of the SLO extravanagnza and th hall itself is raised quite high towards the back, while the SLO floor seems nearly level. You won't see thrash-metal bands performing in Kongresowa, but many of the more esteemed bands have played there, including the Rolling Stones back in the sixties.

I had a front-row seat, left stage, putting me some 10 feet away from Steve Howe and maybe 12-15 feet away from the speakers. The doors opened precisely forty minutes before the show was due to begin, a time I spent sitting in the plush-cushioned chair, staring at the stage in dim, green light (this is the Yes stage! These are Steve Howe's guitars right in front of me! Yay! And this guy must be... nah, just a techie double-checking the set.) and basking in the flow of

Robert Kemp

I wasn't at Warsaw.. I live in UK... but by a fluke I found out today that Eutelsat were carrying a broadcast of the show tonight (FM mono). It sounded great but the power failed half way through Siberian Khatru, Alan played a four minute drum solo, acoustically, before Igor brought the band back in at the keyboard solo break.

The surprise of the show was a beautiful version of Polonaise ( from Private Collection by Jon & Vangelis) played by Jon & Igor - (doesn't quite have the same ring to it )- and dedicated to Gdansk and Solidarity.

The broadcast stopped just before The Revealing Science of God....*****!!!!!!