strongdreams

Friday, December 9, 2016 11:24 AM

let me explain who soundchaser is..he is the biggest fan of yes and yes music that has ever lived. i should know,he turned me on to yessongs in 1976 when i was 11yrs old with 2 triaxile alpine speakers with a clarion amplifier in a camero.your review is so over the top wrong,it should not be written. your perception is so off,that you A: never saw yes in 77 gfto tour ,never saw 78 pr 79 in the round tours and just really have no idea what the real yes is about. what is currently out there has ZERO TO DO WITH YES. IT IS A TOTAL FARCE,FAKE AND ID RATHER A BRICK HIT ME ON THE HEAD THAN LISTEN TO HOW BAD THAT PERFORMANCE IS. ive seen yes 57 times all around the world since is was 13..THIS IS NOT YES.what you wrote made no sense as we are to much of an expert of the band ,there incarnations,there music and historic performances. my condolences strong dream reign here

Wurm/ Sound Chaser

Friday, December 9, 2016 10:58 AM

To Steve Roehr. You say You're looking forward to ARW in November, and I'm sure it will be awesome, but it will not be this. It will not be Yes. It will be an awesome something else. I say, ARW is more YES than this band will ever be! Steve Howe is the only reason to be at this show. These 2 bands are fooling around with a legacy that's being tarnished with fake singers and other musicians that are not fit to be in YES! After watching some ARW shows, Jon Anderson is the only one up to speed. Trevor botches the solos and Rick has keyboards that were purchased at Walmart.

Steve Roehr

Tuesday, October 4, 2016 7:14 AM

First......a correction. On drums this night was Jay Schellen, as Alan White was recovering from back surgery. He did an incredible job, and really, the drumming was as good and fresh as most any Yes show I've seen.

Not sure about who "Sound Chaser" is, or what his problem is with Yes. I can only suggest that if you don't love this band anymore, perhaps you shouldn't attend the shows? Just a suggestion.

I've been seeing Yes since 1974, and have NEVER been disappointed with a Yes show. This was the first one I had any concern over. After all, With Chris' passing, and Alan in hospital, something had to give, right?

Well.......no. Not really. Once again, Yes dazzled me from start to finish with wonderful show, and a solid and surprising set-list. Honestly, they sounded as good and fresh and tight as every other Yes show I've been to. Billy Sherwood was my biggest surprise. At first it was odd looking over to stage right, and not seeing my beloved Fish. But Billy has taken this request from his friend quite seriously. He simply nailed it. The bass, the pedals, the BG vox, the whole nine yards. He was the real deal. Whether intended or not, my wife pointed out that with the fan blowing on him, and his long coat outfit, at times she got the eerie feeling he WAS Chris.

The first tour my wife and I ever saw as a couple was 1980's Drama tour. Here was the full album Drama (including Does it Really Happen? and Run through the light which were NOT included in the Drama tour). We now have 36 years of marriage and shared Yes love together, and this was very exciting. Then.....if that wasn't enough, A good chunk of Tales from Topographic Oceans. We had seen Revealing Science on the OYE tour, and Ritual in the 35th anniversary, and Masterworks. I guess masterworks is still the "go to" performance of ritual, with the whole band playing percussion during the drum break, but this came very close, and for Jay Schellen to nail this like he did is quite a compliment to him as a drummer. As for RSOG and Leaves of Green from the Ancient, I enjoyed these more than the other times I have heard these live. The standard classics were all played with spirit and gusto. Steve Howe is still a guitar hero beyond compare. Geoff has gotten even better. I've become quite the Downes fan.

Finally.....like it or not, Jon Davison is the goods. Yeah....I know ....he didn't write this stuff, and he isn't Jon Anderson. But in 2016, and based on what all I've heard of him over the last five years or so, while JA can still sing fairly well in comparison to some contemporaries from the golden age of Rock, he can NOT sing well enough to be the singer of Yes anymore. There isn't a better pick the band could have made than JD. He has the power, the range, the delivery, and is quite at home and quite comfortable as the lead singer of Yes. His delivery on ALL the material was stunning and emotive.

My wife and generally go to every tour. We missed to 2 album, (but did see the 3 album tour).

We both agreed after the show, as did another couple we met with a similar Yes tour background, that this was the best Yes show we had seen since 1994's Talk tour. So Yes lives on........

I somehow still believe, that if the attrition is done just right. If they make a really good album or two with this lineup, that Yes may be able, (as Blood, Sweat and Tears has), to move forward into future decades, even without any members from any of the classic lineups, and still legitimately BE Yes. Not a tribute band. Because there is a special kind of musical energy that IS Yes music. This is not to denigrate the fine legacy of those who have passed through, but is rather a testament to the Yes thing. This music just must be. It must continue.

What a night. What a memory to cherish. The birth of Yes 2.0. It works for me.

I'm looking forward to ARW in November, and I'm sure it will be awesome, but it will not be this. It will not be Yes. It will be an awesome something else. I don't like that it seems to be competition. More that one band can be out playing this timeless music. They have a right to. But why do the acts insist on comparing themselves to each other, and calling each other tribute bands.

As for me, I'm just looking forward to another wonderful night of Yes music plus, and I'm a happy camper these days as a Yes fan.

Sound Chaser

Wednesday, September 14, 2016 1:21 PM

Waste of time trying to analyze. Used to be 5 gods from Mount Olympus on stage. Now there are 5 mere mortals, on stage, of which 1 used to be immortal. HOWE

Sound Chaser

Wednesday, September 14, 2016 10:44 AM

To Jon Yo. Get a sense of humor. I've seen YES 54 times since 1979. I'm not an internet troll. For the last 4-5 tours iv'e posted nothing. My problem is that I've listened to 10/28/78 Wembley In the Round 10,000 times. Anyway, the post I put is more accurate than someone saying they are as good as ever. Or Jon Davidson sounds as good as Jon Anderson. Or that this band is YES. It's not. It's YES music with Steve Howe and company.

JonYo

Friday, September 9, 2016 12:46 AM

I have to assume that Sound Chaser is a new account of the old Wurm user, who does NOTHING but post reviews of shows he didn't even go to, just to reiterate, for the millionth time, his opinion that the current incarnation of the band is not as good as the 70s version.

We get it. We've heard your opinion. You've repeated your opinion a MILLION times. Now please go away. You are not accomplishing anything. No one is skipping going to shows because of your posts. The band is not reading these comments. There's nothing informative coming from you, and you're not contributing anything to any discussion. You are doing nothing but trying soooo hard to bum people out, and yet, you're failing. Through all this, you're showing yourself to be a textbook example of an internet troll, someone who just wants to get any reaction from anyone. Why else would you post the same stuff over and over?

Just stop. Leave the site, go express your opinion somewhere where the same exact comments haven't been posted by you countless times already.

Soundchaser is an Asshole

Wednesday, September 7, 2016 8:07 PM

no one in their right mind could even think of comparing any configuration of Yes members with the band that they were in the 70's and 80's. You are an ass.

Sound Chaser

Tuesday, September 6, 2016 10:34 AM

This is YES music being played by a substandard band. Steve Howe is the only reason to go. Anyone that thinks this is YES is nuts. Where is the mind boggling musicianship. Nowhere to be found. This is a YES cover band with Steve Howe, who once was the greatest guitarist ever!!!!!!!!!!!!! All these people trying to analyze this show with a fake band and sound are comical. There's nothing to analyze. This is diluted YES. At a real YESSHOW everyone walking out says that was the greatest ever! Who's walking out of this show saying it was the greatest ever? No One.

Sound Chaser

Tuesday, September 6, 2016 10:24 AM

This is YES music being played by a sub standard band. Steve Howe is the only reason to go. Anyone that thinks this is YES is nuts. Where is the mind boggling musicianship. Nowhere to be found. This is a YES cover band with Steve Howe, who once was the greatest guitarist ever!!!!!!!!!!!!! All these people trying to analyze this show with a fake band and sound are comical. There's nothing to analyze. This is diluted YES. At a real YESSHOW everyone walking out says that was the greatest ever! Who's walking out of this show saying it was the greatest ever? No One.

Mike Weatherford - Las Vegas Review-Journal

Friday, September 16, 2022 6:45 PM

Las Vegas native’s dream job in Yes a mix of ‘utter sadness’ and ‘incredible joy’

By MIKE WEATHERFORD
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
August 25, 2016

Billy Sherwood can’t help seeing internet comments from people who “plant their negative flag into my garden.”

“Without Chris (Squire) there’s no Yes,” they tell him.

“And I thought, ‘Well, that’s funny, because Chris himself thought the exact opposite.’ So who do I listen to, you or Chris?”

Sherwood is a Las Vegas native son of ’70s lounge performers, who stepped in as bassist for the progressive-rock institution after Squire died of leukemia in June 2015.

“Toward the end, I think he was a little more in touch with his mortality than I was willing to accept. He was kind of priming me: ‘You promise me you’re into this and you’re going to do this with the guys,’ ” he recalls.

Sherwood, 51, already had been part of the revolving-door band’s extended family. He was a utility sideman (in the shadows of the official lineup) at the Thomas &Mack Center in 1994, and an official member for tours that played Las Vegas in 1997 and 1999.

But more recent years found Sherwood helping from the sidelines, mixing or producing the band’s albums and offshoot projects. He learned of Squire’s leukemia battle in May of last year, about the same time as the rest of the world.

“It was six weeks from him telling me he was sick until he passed away, and in those six weeks we had many, many conversations,” Sherwood recalls.

The band already had committed to summer tour dates with Toto. Forging on so soon after the revered British rocker’s death extended the outrage that some felt when original singer Jon Anderson was replaced during a lengthy illness and never invited back.

“It took quite a bit to strengthen up and go out there and play this stuff on that first tour,” Sherwood admits. “Because I had a range of emotions, from utter sadness to incredible joy in playing this music, and back to sadness and a little bit of feeling guilty because this should have been Chris standing there and not me.

“Lots and lots of emotions going through my head, which had me in a pretty strange space I’d never been in on a tour.”

Eventually, he found solace in “thinking of the lighter side of Chris … we had so many laughs together and so many good times. When I’m up there playing, I just think about that stuff and it just inspires me to go for it. I feel a lot more at ease about it all.”

The two had been friends since the late ’80s, when Sherwood’s first band, World Trade, caught Squire’s ear during Yes’ most tumultuous era: Squire anchored the official lineup, while Anderson organized a group of alumni as Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman &Howe.

Squire asked if Sherwood would be his group’s lead singer — an offer that would have floored the William E. Orr middle schooler who saw the classic lineup at the Aladdin in 1977.

Even so, Sherwood declined.

“A man’s gotta know his limitations, and that was mine. It was career suicide and I knew it,” he says. Beyond comparisons to Anderson, Sherwood also sensed the band’s 1991 reconciliation was “on the horizon,” and “I didn’t want to get caught up in that tornado and be the odd man out, no matter how many people told me it was the right thing to do. Including Chris, relentlessly.”

Sherwood now finds himself on the road with Yes during an oddly parallel time. Saturday’s outdoor show at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center currently has only one member of the classic lineup, guitarist Steve Howe.

(While drummer Alan White is recovering from back surgery, he is being covered by Jay Schellen, who was part of the recently closed Las Vegas show “Raiding the Rock Vault.” The other two members are singer Jon Davison and keyboardist Geoff Downes; the latter played on the 1980 album “Drama,” which Saturday’s show promises in its entirety.)

But in November, the Palms is set to host a new teaming of Anderson, keyboardist Rick Wakeman and guitarist Trevor Rabin, the architect of the band’s popular ’80s sound. Could another merger be on the horizon? Who even owns the Yes name?

“All that stuff is above my pay grade,” Sherwood says with a laugh. “Let’s be honest. Did anyone think Yes could survive Chris Squire not being there? I wasn’t sure, and I was the one being asked to do it. But it seems to be surviving and thriving.” The future is “a hard thing to even discuss, because you just don’t know until you get there.”

Sherwood says he tries not to draw “hard lines” about authenticity. “Life evolves and music evolves and bands change,” he says. “We’re losing guys. That’s sad to say, but it’s true. But the music lives on and it’s a testament to the music.”

His “music first and foremost” philosophy stems from “my history of being a musician for so long, and my father being a musician, and his father.”

Sherwood’s father, Bobby Sherwood, was a bandleader, trumpeter and actor known for the songs “Sherwood Forest” and “Elks’ Parade,” before settling in Las Vegas as a lounge act. Sherwood’s mother is Phyllis Dorne, who sang with her husband in Las Vegas. The two divorced before his death in 1981, and Billy says his mother is enjoying retirement as an active golfer in Palmdale, California.

“So much a part of me is that town,” Sherwood says. “Even though I left when I was 12 or 13, my formative years of understanding what music is and being around musicians (came from) hanging out at the musicians union on Tropicana. All those things were a big part of what made me want to do what I’m doing. I still consider it my hometown.”

Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com and follow @Mikeweatherford on Twitter.

Preview

Who: Yes

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, 200 S. Third St.

Tickets: $44.50-$79.50 (800-745-3000)