Jim

"I remember the time my girlfriend and I arrived at Hampton Roads, Va. for the 90125 tour. We were hungry and went to hang out at the Sheraton because that is where Yes usually stays. There was a lounge/restaurant called "Yesterdays" believe it or not. We went in to have lunch.

We were the only patrons at 2:00 in the afternoon. We took a table and started looking at the menu. About 15 minutes later, Alan walks in and just stops to look around the restaurant. I whispered to Ann, "look Ann there's Alan White ! We made it a point not to be obviously excited, hoping he would stay for lunch. Well he walked on into the dining room and just kind of glided over to sit down at the table next to us ! There was one of those partition walls about the height of the table between both tables, so there was a kind of barrier. He asked us how we were and we started "smalltalk" which is so important. These guys really appreciate non fanatical fans who do NOT give continual praise over and over. They like to talk about regular things. They always seem to move into the discussion about music which is the key to ask those questions you always were dying to ask.

Alan shared the fact that he was kind of depressed because they were on tour and his wife had given birth to their child about 2 weeks earlier, so he did not have the chance to see his newborn. So, we talked about the not so glamorous side of touring and being a member of a supergroup like Yes.

We talked about 20 minutes when I see Tony walking into the restaurant. Alan quickly introduces us and we smalltalk a little more with both of them. Alan orders a chef salad and I honestly forgot what Tony ordered. Anyway, we talk about all the musicians that they both had worked with in the past. The conversations flowed very easily and spontaneously. Toward the end, Alan asked us if this was the first show we had seen on this tour and we said no, this was the 6th !!! He and Tony looked quite amazed. I had gotten up from the table earlier to find our waitress and tell her to put their bill on my tab. When they later asked for the check she said "that won't be necessary sir, this gentleman is taking care of it. Again they both looked very surprised at each other and were kind of lost for words. Finally, Alan says "do you guys have tickets yet?" We said that we had not but just planned to pay a scalper and try to get some good seats if we could. Alan then said ..... "tell ya what, go to the will call window before the show and give them your names. You will be on the guest list". We thanked them very much and they both just grinned big time at our unrestrained excitement.

We get at the will call window at around 7:00 and ask the lady to check the guest list for our names. Our names are NOT on the list ! We explain lunch and everything so she says "hold on, let me call back to the dressing room". She calls and asks to speak with Alan. Fortunately, Alan is there and she explains that there are a couple of guest by the name of Jim and Ann who you had lunch with, but their names are not on the guest list. He says something to her and she hangs up the phone. She then points to a door and says "go over there to that door and wait for someone to open it for you. So we do. About 5 minutes later some guy wearing a backstage pass opens the door and motions us in. He says "follow me" and doesn't look back to see if we are behind him, but we were ! He walks us into the coliseum, up to the front row, across to the dead center, and says "will these seats be ok for you?" He grinned, we grinned and he rushed away saying behind him "enjoy the show". 90125 .... front row center !!! ...... so like the new album says ..... "doesn't get much bettahhhhh" . . . . .

John Huebner

New material works best for Yes
Daily Press
By Jory Farr

HAMPTON - Most of the teen-agers who turned out for the Yes concert Wednesday night at Hampton Coliseum were mere toddlers when the British group was making a name for itself as a slick art rock band.

Back then, in the early '70s, keyboardist Rick Wakeman was leading the band into the murky waters of rock mysticism. Using synthesizers to create booming, thick crescendos and borrowing chord progessions and orchestral scoring from classical musicians like Bach and Grieg. Yes achieved a gothic, operatically intense sound that sometimes was lovely but just as often was pompous and excessive.

The problem still plagues the group, as Wednesday's concert pointed out.

Wakeman left the group in 1974 to pursue a solo career, and only vocalist Jon Anderson and bassist Chris Squire remain from the original band. But the new group, featuring guitarist Trevor Rabin, keyboardist Tony Kaye and drummer Alan White, still exhibits all the strenghts and weaknesses of the old band.

Led by androgyne Jon Anderson's distinctively reedy voice, the group sang tight, soaring harmonies on vintage Yes tunes like "Roundabout" and "All Good People." On new songs, like the synth-pop offering "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and "It Can Happen," the band sounded fresh and, at times, shimmering. Both tunes showed the group has a feel for infectious dance-pop rhythms.

Coupled with an extrordinary light/slide show that meshed perfectly with Yes' music, the band fed its fans a kind of aural/kinetic mind food - replete with science fiction, mystical peotry and eerie chords.

Trouble is, this kind of food can leave you desperately hungry for music with guts and substance. With lame reliance on thudding, showy chords, greeting-card lyrics and hi-tech vaudeville stage tricks (like clouds of billowing smoke). Yes' music comes off as pretentious and self consciously arty - not mystical and awe-inspiring.

Nor does it help that somes of the group's members are incredibly self-indulgent.

Both Squire and Rabin, on bass and guitar respectively, engaged in endless show-boating Wednesdy, taking meandering, long-winded solos that lacked originality and soul. While this was sometimes visually dynamic - people stood up craning their necks to see what the musicians were doing onstage - musically such shennanigans amounted to nothing.

But the group made up for its excesses with its newer songs, which the new band members were more comfortable with.

Yes smoked when it tackled "Leave It" and "Changes," two songs from the band's latest LP. The harmonies were tight, and the band played seamlessly, propelled by White's savvy drumming and Rabin's blistering guitar work.

By the time the band launched into it's final encore, the classic "Gimme Some Lovin," Yes fans were gaga for their group. Most of the crowd was standing, cheering or holding cigarette lighters aloft, clearly happy wiht the generous 2 1/2 hour show they'd show.

Randall Hammill

I was 14, just about to start high school and I got tickets with a friend of mine. His older brother had gone to the Hartford show that spring and went to this one too, although they sat much closer. I think we inherited his tickets when they got better seats.

I had started picking up Yes stuff when I first heard 90125 earlier that year at a party with our German exchange student. That summer it was our turn and I went to Germany and by then I had also picked up Fragile - on cassette. Well, by the time I got to Germany I had started collecting records and went in search of all the Yes records I could find. I would then go back to my exchange house (since I didn't feel like going to school with them in the summer) and tape them on his dad's stereo so I could listen to them on my walkman (actually a Toshiba). They took me sailing and I can remember lying on the front of their boat on Lake Uberlingen listening to Heart of the Sunrise... I don't think they really cared for me because all I wanted to do was listen to music and hang around Germany, but I didn't really like him either.

I picked up Yessongs (in a slightly different packaging, it had two extra panels so each picture took up two spaces instead of one, and was folded like an accordion instead of a book), and Drama - which I loved, especially Machine Messiah. Anyway, we almost convinced our teachers to take us all to the Yes concert in Germany, but it turned out to be on the same night as the scheduled party with parents and stuff. Bummer.

So I had to wait until September to see the North American Tour. By then I had the first half of the Dortmouth concert on tape and was ready for more...

We sat dead center on the lower level of the riders at the end of the floor (section 11, row 11, seat 5). What was my first concert experience like? Amazing! You didn't hear Chris Squire, you FELT the Doctor - Chris Squire. He was definitely the focal point. We weren't impressed by Jon's exercise outfit, and Tony just looked old and boring. Trevor was cool and played great guitar, but wasn't Steve Howe. I hadn't learned about the finer points of rhythm yet, so we weren't that interested in the drums as a focal point yet. But Squire, in his white doctor's coat with the heart and veins running around it, jumping all over the place was great. Besides, even when you weren't looking at him, you knew he was there.

I remember that they played all of 90125, but we were a little disappointed that they did not play some of the older stuff they had played on the previous leg, which we had heard on the Germany bootleg, although we were not as impressed with Trevor's interpretations of Yours is No Disgrace. We still wanted more old stuff. They also didn't have the laser show we had heard about. But I bought a program, the bumper sticker and a couple of T-Shirts. Now that I think about it, I think the glow-in-the-dark 90125 T-shirts is one of the few that I don't have anymore. I just wore it too much. Oh well, most of the others don't fit anyway.

It was way more than enough to get me hooked on concerts, and I have not missed a Yes show since then. I also introduced my brother to concerts with Yes (Union), but that's a different story.

And so I don't give the wrong impressions I found over the years that I really grew to like Trevor's variations and music very much. There was a while where I would go at it with the one guy who I knew who liked Trevor better. But by the time the Box set came out I felt the unreleased material from the 90125 guys was much stronger than the classic line-up, and I loved Talk. But I also still enjoy listening to Union and Open Your Eyes, so I guess it only shows that I am really just a fan of Yes. This was just the beginning.