![]()
Tuesday, August 24, 2004 Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio Blossom Music Center 18,781 capacity 18 years, 7 months and 2 days ago
|
Anthony Anselmo My evening started off with me trying to find the pre-show meeting spot. (Damn was it muggy up in Cleveland.) I have never been to preshow get-to-gether, but I was pleasantly surprised. After I arrived and I was introduced to the webmaster of yesfans.com, I got my own official name tag (insert typical Jon whoo! here). I ended up meeting some extremely nice people, even one individual named Matt who shared the same love for Genesis as I did. Very cool get together and very amazing to see so many people just get together and talk with perfect strangers, like they where long lost friends, just from having common musical tastes. I arrived at Blossom and as I walked in I caught someone playing Genesis's Afterglow. Funny I thought as I just was discussing Wind and Wuthering with people. After a quick bathroom break I sat down in row 5 from the stage, right smack dab in the middle. Now here's where some of the complaints go, because after I sat down some other gentlemen came down during the Dream Theater show. They basically had tickets for some other area, but where going to try and sit down up front. As the evening progressed they kept moving from seat to seat, hoping that an individual would not show up at the concert tonight, so they should steal a seat. While they were very nice and where extremely polite to me, I found this a bit unfair for those who did arive late during the Dream Theater production. The one guy (althought once again very nice) was on his fifth beer probably, and offered me a Vicadin. I politely declined. Needless to say as people rolled in they kept moving from seat to seat. While I understand that ability to say 'Hey if someone shows up let's sit there'. I found this seat-hopping method I bit un-moral. Dream Theater came on exactly at 7:30. Now I only know these guys from covers they do of other bands (Genesis, Yes, Kansas etc...) But needless to say I was quite impressed with their set. They defintely sounded like a combination of Rush and Genesis. The keyboardist was on a revolving keyboard which was cool because he could turn around and show you what he was playing. The guitarist was AWESOME and the songs they played created a whole atmopshere that was incredible. The only complaint is that the lead singer who always just looked pissed off, was very hard to hear at times. But I blame that on the lack of acustics at Blossom. (He also was just dresssed BAD, blue jeans???) After the intermission they pulled up the black curtain, strung up the giant balloons and rearranged the instruments. As typical they started with Firebird Suite, and then the curtains came down, Yes strolled out and broke into Going for the One. Jon and Steve seemeded in high spirits, while Alan and Chris seemed a bit tired. And Rick, well does Rick always seem to be jumping from keyboard to keyboard like a mad man, or is it just me? Perfect rendition of Going for the One. From my experience last time at Blossom in 2002, the band was very unevenly mixed, with Rick very hard to hear at times (power went out right before the show). Here the sound was much much better, but Rick was hard to hear until Close to the Edge, (again). I've noticed as I went to the bathroom that the sound changes depending on where you are in the theater. After Going for the One they went into Sweet Dreams which gave us a glismp of the Robo-kicks (unforuantely they didn't play Mind Drive tonight so I never got to see the kicks up close ARGH). Once again perfect rendition. They next went into I've Seen All Good People with the full intro included. The crowd went nuts, and at this point people where trying to figure out should we sit up or stand. Some people had their hands in the air with the peace symbol during the song. Next was America, which I have to saw Steve performed flawlessly. Tonight he was right on the ball with every lick and note, just as percise as the guy from Dream Theater. Althought here it pmroche Great show in the Cuyahoga Valley last night. The guys leaned heavy on the albums CTTE and GFTO. Mind Drive was eliminated from the set, to make room for CTTE. South Side was also axed. The fellas seemed relaxed and loose, but the performance was tight. The mix was suprisingly good for this venue, though Rick coulda been turned up a little. Chris botched a bass note during the acoustic version of Long Distance Runaround, and Jon, laughing, called the whole thing to a halt: "We made a mistake! Whoooo! I love it! I'm excited!" Then they started back up again, tacking on an extra verse at the end to compensate. America was back in the set, and they encored with Every Little Thing (switching back from YiND from the previous show). The pavilion was near capacity, and a bunch of stragglers dotted the lawn. Everyone seemed to dig the show; the crowd was very responsive and the band must have tapped some of that energy. I know that some fans don't dig the Roger Dean inflatables, but from the lawn it looked great, and the lighting people did a wonderful job--it was the most unique, strange and beautiful stage I've ever seen--great colors! Here's the set as best I can remember: Firebird, GFTO, Sweet Dreams, ISAGP, America, CTTE, Clap, Long Distance, Roundabout, Wonderous Stories, Owner, AYAI, Awaken, Every Little Thing. Opening act Dream Theater played an accurate six-minute instrumental version of Machine Messiah. A magical night.
before 'I've Seen All Good People' transcribed by: Pete Roche Jon Anderson:Thank you so much… Thank you so much, thank you. Great to be with you tonight. before 'America' transcribed by: Pete Roche Jon Anderson:Here’s a song…here’s a song about this wonderful beautiful country of yours, “America.” before 'Clap' transcribed by: Pete Roche Jon Anderson:Thank you so much… Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s uh, it’s quite wonderful that we have the energy to play that song, and also, we have an audience to listen to it. We thank you… Now to continue with Steve Howe, guitar! during 'Long Distance Runaround' transcribed by: Pete Roche Jon Anderson:Hold on a sec, hold on a sec! Hold on a sec, hold on a sec. Hold off! It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s okay. We made a mistake! Oh I can’t believe it, I love it! I’m so excited! Second verse. Uh two, uh one, two three four… before 'Wonderous Stories' transcribed by: Pete Roche Jon Anderson:Thank you so much, thank you. We spent a lot of time, uh, traveling all over the world, making music everywhere in the world. We spent a lot of time in Switzerland…we spent uh, three days, and uh I wrote this song and we recorded it one afternoon. And it goes a little bit like this. during 'Wonderous Stories' transcribed by: Pete Roche Jon Anderson:Mr. Steve Howe, Portuguese guitar! before 'Roundabout' transcribed by: Pete Roche Jon Anderson:Thank you so much, thank you. So we’re just gonna hand you over to, uh, a story. (Wakeman starts playing parlor-style piano) Tonight’s story to be told…an evening with Chris. Chris Squire: Good evening, all you lovely people from Ohio! You know, sometimes when I make these little announcements I, I…I sometimes can be a little profane. So I’ve decided tonight I’m…I’m not going to say any naughty words…at all. Anyway. The story, the story I’m about to tell you is about when Alan and I were in Tokyo, and we were in the hotel, and we were trying to decide what to do about the, eh, the acoustic version of uh, of Roundabout. That’s right, Round… we were…we were gonna do that song on the uh, on the acoustic disc, but uh all of us wanted this included in the uh, in the Ultimate Yes Collection, which thank you very much, we’re all going out and buying it, and we really appreciate it. So uh Alan suggested to me, why don’t we do uh, do like a good American blues shuffle and um, see if that groove works, and I said yeah, that sounds like a pretty good idea. So we got to the studio in L.A. and I said to Rick, Rick could… Jon Anderson: No waiters [?]? Chris Squire: Rick, could you possibly…could you possibly give us a really good American blues shuffle on the piano? And he did! And it was fucking brilliant! All right! before 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart' transcribed by: Pete Roche Jon Anderson:This is where Alan, Alan uh White when he was sixteen years old, he used to drum for a stripper on, uh, in a club (catcalls from guys in the crowd) up in north uh…what’s the matter? I thought everybo—every drummer starts with a stripper. Sure. No, I didn’t mean it that way. Anyway, anyway…backing the girl, she took her clothes off, and he used to do this paradiddle…so here he comes. Da-da-dum! Come on, help—Rick, c’mon. So, so, some uh…some…I think probably about thirty years later he put it in uh the beginning of the song, this uh, paradiddle that he’s going to play for you now. I just thought I’d say that just for something to say. Is that all right? Here we go! after 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart' transcribed by: Pete Roche Jon Anderson:Thank you so much. Thank you so much, it was wonderful to play for you this evening. We’ve had a great time. And in about five minutes we’re going to do [?]. Everybody knows how to play [?] So, have a lovely time. We’ll be back in about thirty seconds. before 'And You And I' transcribed by: Pete Roche Jon Anderson:Whoo! Thank you very much. Mr. Rick Wakeman on piano there. Wonderful. Thank you so much. But the uh, really wonderful thing about coming to see you uh, so many times…every year we’re here. Gives us the chance to play a song we enjoy playing so much, and uh, I’ve said it many times, the idear that we have an audience, to be able to play this kind of music in two, uh in 2004, it’s so wonderful. We do appreciate it. Thank you very much. |