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Friday, May 7, 2004 Toronto, Ontario Air Canada Centre 17,000 capacity 18 years, 10 months and 17 days ago
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Troy Friday night's performance was nothing less than spectacular. We were sitting in the lower section of the arena behind the soundboard. At the start of the show there were shouts from the audience to "turn it up," which the soundman abviously heard because the volume immediatley rose. My buddy went up for a beer and noticed that the sound was much better up in the reds, where there were plenty of extra seats. We moved up and he was right..it was much louder and much more clear. I thought Going For The One was an excellent choice for an opener. I love the usual openers, but it was nice to see them do something different for a change. I disagree with the first review, the Chicago blues shuffle rendition of Roundabout was wonderful and expertly pulled off. All in all, it was the best Yes show i've seen to this date. Yes, there were mistakes, but remember, these guys are human and you ones that like to pick apart the songs should remember that. Yes playing at their worst, is still much better than many other live bands these days. And remember, these guys are pushing 60. milan vucicevic Last night's Yes concert at tha A.C.C was the first time I had seen the band in exactly twenty years. From our seats two-thirds of the way back from the stage I was delighted to see they hadn't lost any of their love of performing live nor could Toronto fans hide their hunger for the hallowed group's other-worldly presence. Last night's performance reminded me of the first time I gathered with them "in the round" back in the late seventies. Earlier in the day we dropped by at Sam the Record Man to breathe the same terrestrial ether as the illuminati of progressive rock and sneak a few autographs as well. Although they seemed less than inspired to be there they nevertheless were kind and obliging though noticeably subdued-especially Steve Howe who seemed uncomfortable and near panic-stricken at one point totally ignoring my dumbfounded grin and outstretched hand. Rick Wakeman on the other hand was totally-I mean totally- cool and the only one I managed to exchange more than mere pleasantries with. In fact when I apologetically put before him a freshly procured copy of T.F.T.O. knowing full well he never thought much of the record in the first place, he seemed immediately poised to explain that, although the record was in his estimation "all wrong" he thought I should know that that night's rendition of Ritual was going to kick some major butt- which it most certainly did. Thanks Rick-you can't believe how much I would love to have run into you in a pub somewhere in the English countryside instead- sorry, I realize you've long since sobered up. Which brings me back to last night's performance which, apart from the usual petty annoyances, was a near flawless gem; orbiting somewhere between just above mediocre to beyond the sublime and, on two or three occasions, drifting out towards the nearly alchemical- each point of the pentagram of Yes being in perfect relation to the others and to the elements and planetary bodies at that point. Back on earth, the mix was surprisingly good for an arena although at times it seemed Steve's guitar was a little abrasive (sour grapes!). What's more I felt Going for the One just didn't have enough kick to cut it as an opening number and seemed to fizzle out about half way through- like it always did for me on vinyl. Parallels from the same album or better yet Siberian Khatru, tried and true as it may be from days of old, would have been the wiser choice. Also, the over-sized Seaworld-bought inflatables have got to be set adrift for good. How a sophisticated bunch of musicians the likes of Yes could ever want to be associated with such visual ballast and artistic indiscrimination is beyond me. If there's a subtle bit of wit at work here I fail to see the point. The unplugged segment of the show was tastefully done, however it would have suited a more intimate venue- at one point I felt like I had been beamed aboard the Love Boat. Roundabout should have either been left alone or entirely out of the picture- it deserves more stately treatment done live. Softer numbers like Turn of the Century and Wondrous stories were beautifully rendered however, as was Long Distance Runaround. I nearly left my body during And You and I and Ritual. Overall a highly commendable effort. I will not wait another twenty years before I see these guys again. A-
before 'Mind Drive' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Woo! Thank you. Oh Canada. Sweet Canada. Beautiful Canada. It's great to be with you tonight. Thank you all for coming out. We appreciate it. Oh Canada. Woo! Every time we come out to..uh do a concert tour we always try to do something a little bit different and..uh we're going to do tonight a piece of music we recorded in the nineties, but we never ever played it on stage until just now so. The song actually is about..uh a modern invention that..uh I read about somewhere, I don't know where I read about it, but I read about it and its very simple, the idea is computers we..we have to do that with the computers at the moment, you know, typing stuff and it comes up on the screen. Eventually we won't do that. We'll just touch something and our minds will create things on the computer. It's called entering the 'Mind Drive'. before 'Yours Is No Disgrace' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Thank you so much. Thank you for listening. Thank you. We're going to do..uh we're going to do one more song and then we're going to have a cup of tea and some biscuits and..uh Rick's gotta get the [???] together. Strawberry Jam. [???] cream. It's time for tea. Before that [???] saying..er..after the count of five, Mr. Alan. Mr. Alan, Hey after the count of five. Here we go. Wonderful. Woo! before 'Wonderous Stories' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Woo! Thank you so much. Thank you. Feels like we're in a pub..pub somewhere. Find your gin and tonic please. Gin and tonic. Uh..sorry, sorry miles away. Um..we..we..we've been getting together actually now for many years and there was one time we were in Switzerland forever. It's seemed like forever and we never skied. We didn't have time to skate. We were too busy making lots of music and this is one songs that came out of that experience and..uh so I'm going to play it for you right now. [???] moment in time. before 'Time Is Time' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:There it is. I..I..I'd like to..uh, thank you so much. Thank you. I'd like to draw it, draw your attention to this wonderful drum break known as the Alan, Alan..the Alan White..uh. One more time. You know, you know where he learned that? Listen, Alan used to work in a working mans club in his band. His first band. He's comes from Newcastle up in the north of England and..uh up in the north of England. You know I've been there as well. The band plays first and then the comedian comes on. Then the band goes on again and then the stripper comes on. That's, that's were he learned to play that. See, he learned to play behind the stripper. Seventeen years old. Bad. So bad, I can't believe it. So we're going to do a song which..uh we recorded on an album called..um 'Magnification' and the idea. It's a very simple song. It's just the idea of doing a song..uh we did it one afternoon and it just sorta popped out of nowhere and the lyrics sorta talked about how so many times we got together it's like a homage to the fans. So here we go. A songs for the fans. Starting with Alan on drums. before 'Roundabout' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:So..uh thank you so much. Thank you. So we decided to..uh. Alan has worn his kilt on. Uh..sorry. Sorry Alan. Oh know, Alan wants to show you his kilt. [???]. Chris Squire: [???]. Jon Anderson: Over to Mr. Chris Squire who would like to..uh Chris Squire: Ah Yes. So I want to tell you a little story about when we were..uh. When Warner Brothers asked us to do the..uh this acoustic set and onto the..the 'Ultimate Yes Collection' which is available in your local record store and..uh we..uh decided ..uh to try to do a new version of 'Roundabout' and Alan and I were sitting in the hotel in Tokyo and we thought, Well, you know 'How can we do that?' and then, we thought, we let's try to make it into some kind of Chicago bluesy kind of shuffle and we thought, that might work or it might not so we, so we got to the studio. As we would and then, said to Rick, 'Rick, could you give us a little Chicago blues to see if it's going to work?'. I went 'That's it, that's brilliant. brilliant' [???]. Jon Anderson: Brilliant. before 'Show Me' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Woo! before 'Second Initial' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Woo! Thank you. [???] we'll leave you in the hands of Mr. Steve Howe on guitar. before 'Rhythm Of Love' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Steve Howe:Thank you very much. That was called 'Second Initial'. Thank you. before 'And You And I' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. One of the great things. One of the great things to be able to come here 2004. Who would have believed? Who would of thought? To be able to play this next song. It's..uh a great feeling inside to be able to be with you tonight. I want to thank you all for coming out tonight. before 'Ritual' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. There was a..a sort of wild and crazy time in the middle of the seventies when..uh we started expanding our..our ideas and our thoughts and our energies and..uh it's kind of amazing that..uh we went through this sorta big, big movement of music. Wanted to say so much. Wanted to say so much in our music and..uh truly is wonderful that we can still play the music, that we have an audience for this music we wrote thirty years ago so. As we say, getting together like this is like a ritual and we shall play that for you. before 'Every Little Thing' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Thank you so much. When we first started rehearsing at the beginning of 1968, what this was about the third song we tried to sing and..uh we decided to record it at the BBC and we loved..uh playing it on stage so much we recorded it on the first album. It's an old, old Beatles song from way way back. So we're going to do it tonight for you. |