Ken Desborough

Having attended the Bournemouth gig, my opinion of the set mirrored that of 'The Ladder' album; half quality, half junk. Apart from 'Homeworld' they chose only the poorest of the new tracks, all the more disappointing for having included 'New Language' and 'Nine Voices' earlier in the tour. Of course, class shone through during much of the rest of 'The Yes Album' dominated set, though 'Awaken' was largely ruined by the preponderance of morons in the audience (having attached themselves to Yes during the Eighties for all the wrong reasons) simply not knowing how it ends. (It happened again at the 2nd RAH show.)

Forget 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' (if only we could); that is the more damaging legacy of Trevor Rabin.

Brian Neeson

At Bournemouth on Saturday [Anderson] rehearsed the first three lines of AY&I with the audience before the song. He managed it fine that night.

Steve Smith

A superb show last night . I had a second row seat right in front Steve Howe who is on absolute top form. His soloing on "Yours Is No Disgrace" was breathtaking , I don't know if it is improvised but it made my mind reel wondering where his fingers were going to fly next.

Likewise "Perpetual Change" was 100% classic Yes ; they recreated the feel of 2 ( or 3 ! ) bands playing all at once , being up so close it was fun trying to figure out who was playing which melodies.Stunning.

Jon's voice was a little weak at first but it soon improved as the concert went on , by the time they got to "Homeworld" he was fully up to speed.

By far the highlight of the evening was "Awaken" ; seeing and hearing such a faithful rendition of this , my favourite piece of music by anyone ever , was awesome.The power and majesty rolling off the stage was a joy to behold.

Tony

Hmmmmh....what to say?

Sound level was much down versus the OYE gig 2 years ago. It was too loud then, but I must say, probably too quiet tonite. I was at the back of the hall, and felt more like a spectator to a concert that the band were giving to the folk in the stalls.

The audience was very receptive. Huge cheers and applause - so much so that I almost thought we'd get another song after Roundabout, but then the house lights came on! Huge cheers in Awaken - then High Vibrations....& more cheers at the end.

Set list was a BIG disappointment for me. I'm not a fan of the Ladder album, and mostly enjoy Classic Yes albums up to (some of) Tormato. So FIVE tracks from the Ladder was a lot of time taken up, resulting in many other tracks we did not get to hear.

Highlights for me were Perpetual Change and Awaken - both brilliant. I enjoyed Owner of a Lonely Heart too. Band seemed to be having a lot of fun on stage. Igor was great - especially on Awaken. Even Billy got to play some lead breaks on Owner and Cinema. I really missed not hearing a (full) track from Tales, or Close to the Edge, or Delirium. Oh and the Clap was played in the encore - just great.