Peter Parsons

I was luck enough to see our heroes last night in Brighton. The set was as per the last few nights, no surprises. John dedicated part of the show to Roger Dean who, Jon said "was in the audience with his family" (I think that Dean lives in Brighton). A great show, thoroughly enjoyed it, especially ROSG. Jon missed the cue on Starship Trooper "You and you may ..... follow" and bowed in apology while Steve laughed. Thankfully the rest of the band, and the entire audience knew the song better !

Simon Barrow

Yes were definitely in fine form on England's south coast last night: no set-list surprises, but a performance of considerable vitality and fluidity. With just two more dates on the '98 European tour, one senses that they are beginning to feel 'demob happy'. Steve arrived for the set-up early in the afternoon, apparently. The rest of the band turned up for the latter part of the sound check from 5.30pm onwards for an 8pm start. Since I live in Brighton, I decided to pop down a little early to see what was going on. Stage Door hanging is not really my style, but after 24 years of devotion to this particular (lost?) cause, you gotta do what you gotta do.

The Dome theatre, for those who wish to know these things, is ten minutes away from the sea - a smallish venue seating around 2000. It has an extraordinary history as an annex to (and one-time stable for) the Pavilion, a Royal fantasy palace in mock Indian style built and developed by the Prince Regent in the latter half of the last century - it looks like a mini version of the Taj Mahal on the outside, and the design is primarily Chinoise inside. It ought to be irredeemably tasteless, but it mostly works quite well. (Is there an analogy here, I wonder?)

Anyway, Jon popped out for a chat with seven or eight of us by the aforementioned stage door. He was pretty relaxed (I suspect it was the tea) and was in the midst of growing what looks suspiciously like a goatee. He remarked on the attractiveness of the Pavilion, which faces the Dome across a small ornamental garden, while he signed my ticket. I assumed the role of unofficial photographer for Lou and Tish, who also managed to be snapped with Steve and Billy. Sherwood arrived with Squire and White in a taxi at about 6.30pm. The schedule seemed pretty relaxed. The end is nigh....

Steve Howe endured a marathon signing session for someone who seemed to have brought most of his record collection along for autographic purposes - a copy of the famous bootleg album 'The Affirmery' was adorned with a resounding "bollocks" just to the left of Jon's picture on the back. Make of that what you will, dear AMYers...

As for the concert itself - well, I was fortunate enough to be in the second row of the stalls, dead centre. The sound and energy is so high from that kind of range that perceptions become rather impressionistic. The performance was technically tight, most of the time, but also stylistically loose and good-humoured. A positive combination. Actually, Steve fluffed the beginning of 'Diary of a Man Who Vanished', Chris (unusually) dropped half a bar somewhere in 'The Revealing', and Jon, amusingly, completely lost the crucial "follow..." thread in 'Starship Trooper'. Smiles all round. It didn't seem to matter in the overall scheme of things...

JA finally appears to have learned the lyrics of FTB, btw - perhaps at the expense of a further plummet in his dress sense ;-) How could you begin to describe those flowery silk pants. And the sandals _with socks_. My oh my.... the bravery of it all.

Meanwhile, the between-song patter gets easier and more relaxed each night. Jon's initial mistake in welcoming people to the Pavilion, rather than the Dome, was well exploited later on ("great to be able to play that for you... at the Dome", after AYAI). Steve tactfully omitted to mention that the band were last in Brighton on the Drama tour. But many of us remembered, judging from the age span of the audience.

RSoG was particularly strong, I thought. Someone mentioned to me that Howe had been annoyed by Squire's inclusion of a few purposefully humourous dissonant bass notes during the Sheffield performance. This time Chris played it fairly straight, though I noticed that he and Billy were doubling a variant staccato rhythm in the quiet passage which precedes the climactic synth cadenza near the end. Even so, it's evident that Anderson/Howe treat this piece with a great deal more reverence tha