20 years and 20 days ago

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Blossom Music Center

18,781 capacity

Jon Anderson:
Thank you so much… Thank you so much, thank you. Great to be with you tonight.

Jon Anderson:
Here’s a song…here’s a song about this wonderful beautiful country of yours, “America.”

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!

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…

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.

Jon Anderson:
Mr. Steve Howe, Portuguese guitar!

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!

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!

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.

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.