mr schu "bustermayhem.com"

this show was a real treat. on the whole, the sound and performance did not live up to my expectations. but, it was still a tremendous display of music. nice to see "close to the edge" live. they were not as tight, loud or powerful as the 90125/big generator yes. steve howe was slightly dissapointing. but even on a bad night, he's better than most guitarists. it was unfortunate that this was my first time seeing steve howe play live. i had always held him in high regard. his performance that night left me confused over how great of a guitarist he actually is. bill bruford obviously doesn't like yes. at least it's obvious to me. he seemed to be plowing through the majority of the material with no passion for it whatsoever. he is much better when he plays with king crimson. rick wakeman blew everyone away with his solo. but he had a rough time mixing his sound with the rest of the band. jon anderson was a bit too excited, and perhaps a bit too anxious for the audience to like the show. his singing was beautiful. especially on the ABWH songs. "birthright" was most definitely a highlight. "brother of mine" started off real strong. it was one of the best pieces of live music i'd ever heard. but it eventually crashed and burned somewhere in the middle and was a complete mess by the end of the song. we all applauded anyway. it was my 2nd yesshow. it had it's up's and down's. my 1st yesshow was all up's. i just wasn't expecting down's. especially not from howe and wakeman. they're supposed to be the "real" yes. i summed it all up in one sentence. All they needed was squire.

Robert Statsinger

I will highlight good and bad things as follows:

GOOD:

- the show opening

was wonderful. Anderson cruising down the isles singing a Time and a Word/Owner of a Lonely Heart medley accompanied by the second guitar player

- Rick Wakeman

was awesome. He didn't seem to have missed a beat from the old days in terms both of his technique and energy. He also seemed very enthusiastic - must have been caught up in the nostalgia as I was.

- Bill Bruford

proved that he can drum circles around Alan White (and probably most other rock drummers). Powerful, dramatic solos; the subtle, jazzy syncopation on the old numbers which White never could match Bill was particularly great in Close to the Edge & Heart of the Sunrise.

BAD:

- the bass player:

WHO THE F*CK WAS HE? WHERE WAS LEVIN? Unless Levin has given up the stick in favor of a Kramer, has forgotten the music so that he needed to read from a chart, and was sporting a toupee, I had the sneaking suspicion that Tony Levin was not present. The stand-in actually played quite well, and give the man the high five for doing a good job with probably not much warning. But I was dissappointed not to see Tony.

- towards the end of intermission, the dumbf*ck KLOS DJ who was "MC" and had introduced the show gets on the mike and announces to the whole audience: "OK, gang, Close to the Edge in three minutes!!!", thus ruining the sense of anticipatory drama for the opening of the second set. This guy should be hung up by his balls.

- In the old days these guys didn't need a supporting cast. I'm saddened that their egos and/or contracts required a second guitar player and keyboardist. Certainly Wakeman didn't seem to need any help, but Howe......

- Steve Howe, my dear old hero, seems ready for Las Vegas. He was maybe 80% of the brilliant demon he once was. Although the acoustic tunes were done with aplomb (I heard one glitch during the Clap), he got by with as little as possible electrically. His technique has faded in terms of finger speed; he generally seemed aware of this and tried to stay within himnself but occasionally he obviously couldn't play what was in his mind. He did put all the right licks in the right places; the "had to be there" licks were there in the oldies, but it was clear that he was rusty. He either needs to practise as much as he did in the old days, or to take the same drugs :-)

The most well played of these IMHO were Close to the Edge and Heart of the Sunrise. Wish I'd heard Awaken but no such luck. Overall I give the show a B, and I'm dissappointed because I was expecting an A.

Eric Hokenson

This show was definitely special for me as it was my first YES show. OK so it wasn't really "YES", but I definitely count it. The show was at the Greek Theater in LA (which incidently is probably THE BEST concert venue in the Los Angeles area).

Anyway, the show started with solo bits from all four yesmen. I particularly liked Jon's acoustic bit with "Time and a Word" (first time I heard that song) and "Owner of a Lonely Heart". They then proceeded to play a solid first set until the intermission. During the intermission, one of roadies announced "10 minutes 'til Close To The Edge", oh well so much for the element of surprise.

Their whole show was great, and indeed quite long (as all concerts should be!). One thing I really liked about the show was the songs they played from their "Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe" album. Songs like "Brother of Mine", "The Meeting" and "Order of the Universe", etc. are great tunes. Unfortunately, since ABWH is not technically a YES album, none of these songs have been played on subsequent tours. A pity since IMHO, ABWH is their best all studio album release since "Going for the One".