Matt

Monday, May 19, 2014 9:33 AM

Hmm.... Well it sucked! Wait...... No it didn't It was a blast!

Picnic in the park went awesome, the weather was PERFECT, it was about 80F in the sun, Eat your heart out all you non-So. Cal folks. Beer, wine, cocktails, picnicesque type foods.. Perfect It's hard for me to ever write anything on a Yes show... A lot of people will never take what I have to say about this band in a serious manner... I guess there's this automatic assumption that I'm going to go in and no matter what always give a postive opinion of what goes on. I guess a lot of people don't really know me that well. If I speak about something, you'll usually get my real opinion, and many times certain muscians would likely not be flattered by what I really think. if I dont' say anyting, it's usually out of respect,a nd you can be sure that I'm not impressed. I've seen alot of Yes shows... I could count again, but it's in the 120's since 1977, many of which are er um rather foggy But I do have some historical perspective of how these guys play, good and bad.

As for the show, hmm... of course there were some trainwrecks... But I have to say that this Yes as a band is playing by far better than they played at any of the shows I saw on last years tours. It was an awesome evening. They're all doing well, I was a bit nervous as to how the equipment situation was going to play out after the OK. disaster. But Paul Silveria and the whole crew worked night and day and got it all back together and dried out with hair dryers I'm not kidding either... Thank God for Paul (I don't know what this band would do withotu Paul) and that crew You guys all rock man...

The place was mostly sold, I'm going to guess around 5,600 (6,100) with about 200 seats on the far edges of the beautiful Greek Theatre covered (Those seats SUCK, you can't see/hear jack). What an awesome place to see concerts though, with towering 120 ft. trees creating a wall all the way around place. You would never know you were a couple miles from downtown LA/Hollywood. The reception Yes got from the crowd was impressive.

Peter Frampton did a good set played well... Sounded good.. Not much more to say about him... He was Peter Frampton... Of course that brought back some memories of my very vague youngin' years My seat was 17 rows back almost dead center, which at the Greek is perfect for sound. I was kind of suprised, I figured that some of the people would bail out after the PF set... Not many left, and it's seems they did well with cross over appeal between the 2 artists. The Yes fans were cheering and clapping for PF, and vis-versa.

As for Yes, my overall opinion is a very positive one of this show. I thought last years shows were decent but nothing really stood out,amd there were soem really cringe worthy moments last year, they were few and far between last night They played last year, but it was choppy... This time around, at least last night at the Greek I thought they played awesome... The crowd was into it... With many a standing ovation!
With all of Steve's activity over the last 2 years, his fingers are really working these days. He was all over the fret board, and was having a blast up there. Alan seemed to be setting himself back up front of the beat again, which was something that really struck me last year.. How he could be so far behind all the time... Alan's doing MUCH better these days. Oliver, you know this guy has gotten so much crap.. Oh he's not very good and this and that... Man he's a good keyboard player, He stepped out, played his dads parts but gave them some indiviudality... And it was his gear that took the biggest hit in the storm... While there were some key moments I thought he was a bit low in the mix, they didn't last that long... Benoit... OK, I know, I know he's not Jon.. He's not, and anybody expecting him to be or comparing them is crazy.... This poor guy getting charbroiled by the flames of Yesdom.... Benoit does a great