Drama - The Shock and Shame of it ALL!

[Koko]

Drama: I remember walking into my place of work with the NME & Melody maker in my kit bag, sitting down, and opening the M.M and nearly feinting...SERIOUSLY!...I thought it must be a 'wind-up' a 'cruel joke'
someone is hiding behind the door from Candid camera!

Work colleagues - already 'antiYes' to the last person....had a 'field day'...Imagine what it was like the name calling.....
'Hey! I hear there's a new prog rock band called...Yeggles, no no hold onit's Yuggles...or is it Beggles ..etc etc etc......my world was collapsing around me....the last we Yes fans had heard....now remember this was waaaaay before internet...and rapid communication..other than by meeting your mates in the pub on friday or saturday...or the occasional telephone call......was that Yes were 'ensconced' in studio's in Paris writing and recording their eagerly awaited new album - I called my friend Helen...have you heard.....'She hadn't' ...How..HOW was I going to tell her...I couldn't...I said ...' go down the shops and get your M.Maker!..page 3'.....It was the cruelest thing I'd ever said to her...!
This was as bad - nay worse than Bill Bruford's departure to kling Clingons......yes 'That Bad'....A 'NIGHTMARE' come True !
One of those times when you go pale, and clammy cold...there's a block of ice in your gut....and a V. Strange buzzing in the head...to accompany the Sudden Skull Splitting Migraine...caused by the SHOCK!

For those who weren't there - into yes =- born - able to walk without their parents helping hand..then...= perhaps the following analogy might give you some idea of 'what it felt like'...

Jon Anderson and Rick wakeman have left Yes and their replacements are Gareth Gates & Will Young (Pop Idol Winners - apparently).

for our american Yes Buddies - Justin Timberlake taking over from Jon on vocals..and one of the boyz2men taking over from Rick on Keyboards

yes...That BAD!...Only WORSE!....


Then after some 4 -5 months of waiting...the album is previewed on "THE FRIDAY NIGHT ROCK SHOW" ...by Tommy Vance - (Gawd remember that! the Friday Night Rock Show - a legend in Broadcasting.....8 cans of red stripe while listening to that..then cacth a taxi/cab into town in time for MAYHEM! - that's about the size of a normal Friday Night - Rock show meet yer mates in town...get Hammered!...

So they Play Machine Messiah - what's this?...! hey, fgood job I taped it!...then Into the Lens....

hey This Is GOOD!....Vocals ain't EVER Gonna match Jon's but the 'Music' WOW!..

and then I went to see the 'new' Yes/Yeggles live...great to see the lads up on stage again...but...Naah! not ..NOT Good!.....went to see Jon 4 days later on his 'solo' tour "Tour Of The Eighties"...Great...Wonderful to hear that ...to hear "THEE" Voice again!....but...BUT...Jon get back with the lads...you're Missed beyond measure...

Thankfully he / they did...Music and we were the Winners!

Phew!


I still (on a very rare occasion) when I am not sleeping well...wake up @ 3:00am..in a sweat...No NO!..it's okay...it's in the past!..nothing like that will EVER happen again'...?????


Cold clammy sweats + shivvvvvversssss!...brrrrrrrr !

Koko.

[Jonah]

Great post Koko! LOL - you describe the moment SO well.
I remember the Tommy Vance preview of the album. I was sitting in a caravan in Ynyslas with a load of non-Yes fans. When the tracks finished they said how amazing it was. It was a great moment.
I also got the Yeggles thing for a while. It was a really sad time, although I must admist to having a sneaky respect for everything The Buggles had done.
I didn't think the live shows were too bad and I thought the fans were very unfair on Trevor Horn - it wasn't his fault Jon Anderson had left.

Ah...Tommy Vance - the Firday night connection - did you ever get any of those correct?
He's now a failed DJ in Benidorm or something.

[the'YES'kid]

DRAMA RULES! :1svader:

[Martin Riley]

Ah...Tommy Vance - the Firday night connection - did you ever get any of those correct?


Yes I did, I won a copy of Barclay James Harvest's album Eyes of the Universe - wish I hadn't bothered

[Jonah]

Yes I did, I won a copy of Barclay James Harvest's album Eyes of the Universe - wish I hadn't bothered

haha :D

[InverYes]

To this day I have never heard a thing off Drama..too scared to....and I wouldn't know either of those Trevor guys from Adam.

[yesiam]

Drama takes me back to the last weekend in August 1980 when my best friend had left for college in St. Louis. I was going into my last year of high school, so I was feeling down - plus I was going to be starting my senior year in a different school in a few days - not good. Drama had just been released.

So another friend called and said "Hey let's go to this raft race down on the river!". So we got a case of beer, made a sign and hitched a ride down the boulevard to the river with some crazy guy and WOW what a day-that-felt-like-a-year that was. Someone had made a raft called "Tempus Fugit" and Drama was being played everywhere. I got rescued from the yukky river by Marines.

Those are my first memories of Drama. Not bad.

[Koko]

Great post Koko! LOL - you describe the moment SO well.
I remember the Tommy Vance preview of the album. I was sitting in a caravan in Ynyslas with a load of non-Yes fans. When the tracks finished they said how amazing it was. It was a great moment.
I also got the Yeggles thing for a while. It was a really sad time, although I must admist to having a sneaky respect for everything The Buggles had done.
I didn't think the live shows were too bad and I thought the fans were very unfair on Trevor Horn - it wasn't his fault Jon Anderson had left.


No indeed you're quite right...he did an amazing job thinking about it!!
the only guy that ever came close to being able to do a 'pale& poor' imitation of Jon was the guy who did co-vocals on the Journey to the Centre of the earth album...the one whose name is NOT "Ashley Holt!"...I'm in work...and can't recal it at the moment...any way


Ah...Tommy Vance - the Firday night connection - did you ever get any of those correct?


Yes...I did actually (woooooooh! what a swatty pants - LOL!)..But I never got me card pulled from the bag...poor old Tommy he was stitched up (Royally as they say !) by the Beeb....he had a Great Voice ..but his taste wasn't as good....I remember him at donnington with an American foot-ball helmet on - trying to compare/mc as the empty beer cans (half full of p*ss) rained down on the stage!


Do you remeber KERRRANG in it's infancy??....it's CRAP! now...oh well that's progress (NOT!) for you.



He's now a failed DJ in Benidorm or something.


Really!???

Sad I lways liked him - his heart was in the right place - he just didn't have much upstairs!


Koko

[Robert Shupe]

I came into the Yes Fold sometime around 1981. At that time I lived in a small Texas town called Luella and went to school in a place called Tom Bean, Texas (close to Sherman / Dennison are near the Oklahome border.)

Luckily my radio received Dallas radio reception. It was there where I first heard Yes. I then bought Tormato in a discount bin. I then got either Yessongs or Drama. My interest in Yes was neither supported nor criticized. My Tom Bean peers were listneing to bands like The Police, AC/DC/ Van Halen, Styx, and Journey or worse that Country music stuff. At the time, I was not a C&W fan but it's all good now.

Anyway, my interest in Yes was an oddity. I had no one to discuss them with and about as far as I got in deep discussion was when the debut Asia album came out and there was talk that Steve Howe was guitarist from Yes. At least when 90125 came out, I didn't get the "Who is Yes?" as often. My Tom Bean peers knew me more as a fan of The Who as they had a least heard of The Who.


Anyway, when I got Drama I could only judge it by it's own merits. I did not know about the whole Buggles thing and I didn't have the internet or magazines to provide any information. I knew it was not the same Yes as from Tormato and Yessongs but it wasn't a reach for me as I did not have the whole back catalougue to comapare it to as so many of you did. I loved it although Man In A White Car did not do much for me except make me think it was a riddle about the moon. It was hard, heavy, and in my young mind futuristic. Where Tormato sounded like fantasy music of the days of yore, this Drama leapt into the future in my young mind at the time. Machine Messaih was Orwellian but with hope interspersed. Tempus Fugit flew through the speakers and Does It Really Happen thundered.

Today too much information is out there and judgements are often made before the music is even heard. I listned to Drama by myself in my room on a so so turntable system and it rocked for me. No history to cloud my judgements, just the music.

No so traumatic for me.

Robert Shupe

[Q]

Drama is a marvelous album, musically rich and inventive, putting forth the same deep integration of five people merging into something new and different that any good Yes album puts forth ... different but rewarding ...

[illusion]

It's great. Better than Tormato, and better than that 80's rubbish that they put out too!

I like every song, even though the camera thingy is a bit strange, but hey, thats why we love them!

[Jacaranda]

I had bought Drama about 5 or 6 years ago and listened to it for the first time a couple weeks ago. After I bought it way back when, I realised Trevor Horn was on vocals; he's a great producer but the thought on him on vocals brought back memories of the Buggles and bad 80's cliches, so I stuck it in the collection up until a few weeks ago.

I like it; it turned out to be a lot better than I was thinking it would be, and the arrangement of the songs didn't have that stale early eighties sound I was suspecting it might have. Listening to "Machine Messiah" and "Tempus Fugit" actually makes me think about the time Drama came out in 79 or 80; I was 8 and this stuff would have went right over my head, but now I can enjoy it for the brief chapter of Yes it was.

J

[Faceintheplace]

I still say that Trevor Horn sang more like Chris than Jon on "Drama". There's points on the album where the voices almost match exactly. A lot of close harmonies. I don't care what the Buggles put out before and after "Drama" its good music. Its a lot better than the '79 album that was going to come out and IMO its tighter than most of "Tormato" (with the exception of "Future Times" "Release Release" and OTSWF.) I'd rather listen to "Into the Lens" and "Machine Messiah" than "Arriving UFO" and "Circus of Heaven." I also prefer Drama over 90125 as well. There's no law saying everyone's gotta love the same Yes stuff, we should never forget that we're all here for the same reason. And oh yeah, PS: Drama rules! :D

[tardistraveler]

Koko, I remember the time you describe, being a die-hard Yes fan since 1972. I was shocked at Jon's departure, and wondered if the band would recover. Then I thought, well, there's still Chris, Steve, and Alan there, and they're Yes too. So, not really knowing anything about the Buggles (I didn't have that stereotype hanging over my head), I bought Drama, and LOVED it! Sure, I would have rather had Jon singing, but I thought the Drama songs were innovative, and showcased Chris and Steve well. I enjoyed the tour too. I wasn't sorry when Jon rejoined the group, but I loved Drama for what it was.

[prem895]

after i had purchased tormato in 78 and waiting for the bus i said to myself that this should be amazing after gfto. what a disapointment it was considering the line up. now ahead 2 years, i knew that jon & rick were gone & these two guys from the buggles were in the band. the only song that i had heard up to this point from them was video killed the radio star, its claim to fame was that it was the first video played on mtv. im thinking what kind of cheesy cover will it have and who will contribute the bulk of the material? i wasnt as excited for this release as i was for the previous releases.so whenthe day came , of course i going to buy it i made my pilgramage downtown in toronto to sam the record man and started flipping through the vinyl in the yes section and what do you see not the cheesy cover i was expecting but a dean. now this was a good sign i getting alittle exited. i made my way home and played it. man was my thinking all wrong. the tracks were tight, chris, steve & alan rocked. on the most part the songs were well written. drama opened my eyes to this evolution called yes. the band that we love and the band the critics love to hate