21 years, 5 months and 6 days ago

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

London, United Kingdom

Hammersmith Odeon Theatre

3,350 capacity

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. It’s great to be with you here at The Apollo, London, Hammersmith. Great to be with you! It seems like only yesterday we were here. Well, that’s tomorrow night. I’ll have to say that twice. We’re going to do a song which we recorded a couple of years ago. The idea, very simply, magnify the goodness within so that the magnified of the good without shall come through, and all that stuff! It’s called ‘Magnification’.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. Thank you. Don’t kill the whale, don’t kill the trees, don’t kill the butterflies, don’t kill the bees. We’re surrounded by amazing energy all day long. Most of us see it, most of us don’t. But it’s there none-the-less. We call it the divine.

Jon Anderson:
Wooh! Thank you so much. Thank you. Wooh! Hey. Some, ahh, thirty odd years ago, we were recording in a place not far from here [??] London somewhere, it’s called Advision studios. And ahh, the story was that, ahh, and the story is true. ELP were working downstairs and they had a day off, on Sunday and I went down and got the key. I went down and wrote this little ditty, as they say. So, if you at all remember this, this is for all the Yes families, because we’ve got so many kids now, and they’re so beautiful. And the Yes families as well. Yes family family, Yes fan families. Am I getting into a big hole here? [??] Lovely, out of tune, I love it. How did it get out of tune? Laaa, laaa, laaa. Thank you.

Jon Anderson:
Running away with the key! Running away with the key! Later that night, we recorded this next song. It’s about mountain climbing. Mountain climbing is so dangerous. Don’t get cold, got to learn to climb that mountain.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much. Thank you. It was later that year we actually wrote this next song. I think it was later that year, or some time close by, that we wrote this song. And, ahh, I went through that experience, ahh, so many years ago, feeling very free, and just make music. It was kind of so inspired to look back now and say well, we were so free. And somebody asked me last night, he said was it better in those days? I said no, it’s better now! So much better now, because we can still play that music. We have an audience that want to come and hear it! Amazing! Love, love, love is all you need. Love is so powerful, love is everything. Get down into it, love is everything. This is for Jane.

Steve Howe:
Hey, thanks a lot. It’s great to be back in London again, thank you. Thanks so much.

Jon Anderson:
Here we go. I say, I say, I say. So much, thanks. Just before we started the tour, I started to write down all the things that I was sort of thankful for in my life, you know. Something that inspired me, and stuff like that. And the first thing I wrote down was Daffy Duck. And then Bugs Bunny and then Muhammad Ali, Stanley Matthews and then Frank Zappa! Wooh! So I’m going to sing you a song, try to anyway.

Jon Anderson:
Yeah, I found this cassette and it was marked 1972. And I looked at some of the songs and I found this song and I actually revised it. And I’m going to sing it for you now, so here goes. It goes like this.

Jon Anderson:
The original wizard of the keyboards, Mr. Rick Wakeman!

Jon Anderson:
He’s been practicing. He’s been practicing.

Jon Anderson:
On the bass guitar, Chris Squire! Chris Squire, bass. On the drums, Mr. Alan White on drums!

Jon Anderson:
Thanks so much for coming along this evening. It’s been great playing for you again. And, ahh, we’re going to do a couple of songs that you can sing along to maybe even more if we have time. We’re going to do this song, the first song, in the key of, in the key of something like that. Just waiting for, ‘Wonderous Stories’? This is ‘Wonderous Stories’ backwards. Got the guitar? Ahh, there it is! It’s the old Portugese guitar. Not to be confused about between the Portugese or the French because this is a Portugese guitar and it’s in the key of that key for a sing along. Here we go.