YesPen

Set list: Yours Is No Disgrace was played before And You And I, as was South Side Of The Sky before Machine Messiah. Steve's solo pieces, Corkscrew and Sketches In The Sun, were new to me and a pair of pleasant acquaintances. Starship Trooper as encore. Revealing to finally hear the two Drama tunes on stage, seemed like the whole band really enjoyed playing them.

Musicians: I was afraid that this next to last gig on the tour, with preceding show the last night before in Copenhagen, would bear some mark of fatigue, but all the guys gave terrific performances. Steve was really shining, with certain trend to jazz elements in variations. Chris bouncing together with Allan's drums and also as lead instrument. The new guys blending in fitfully - to the extent that we could hear them.

Sound: Well, here we get to the difficult part. Where I sat up on the gallery, bass had total world domination for the first half of the show. Lost were most vocals, in particular the harmonies that are a hallmark of Yes, and Oliver's sounds became also fairly anonymous. After Steve's solo things cleared up a bit, and the last four songs finally had the definition of the sound that Yes' tightly woven music needs. (And this guy besides me who needed to make all this phone calls during the quieter parts, did regrettably not enhance the experience.)

All in all it was good to hear Yes again, but a pity to know that the magic of Yes music could have given me more goose bumps than on the one occasion at the end were it really happened, had one guy just used one finger at the right place. Hopefully people seated elsewhere could enjoy the music better than what I did at my seat.

Please come back soon - but at another venue!