OTWSOF 2022 - What happened?

[Bingleyhall1977]

Kenny, I can understand your doubts after the Glasgow clips. But the RAH clips changed my mind. Let’s not forget they have just lost Alan, and that must effect them deeply.

I thought to my old man ears that the tempos were fine. In fact I thought Jay was was playing really hard and fast , I think Alan would have loved it. Also Billy was getting some great tones from his basses.

Steve was as far as I could see and hear was playing incredible well.

There was the odd sound mishap, but that live music.

There was a great moment at the Birmingham gig when Jay went to throw his drumsticks in the air, and missed the catch on one of them and the stick sort of had a mind of its own and twirled around his symbol and landed back by his drums. He and his drum tech were having a good laugh about that.

The crowd were very receptive to every song. I enjoyed the new material.

Couldn’t complain about the price of the tickets 49 quid.

have to agree about your comments about Rick at the Royal Festival Hall, I thought it was a good concert but way too short. We were outside on the balcony at about 9 o’clock. Rick seems to be doing a little as he can get away with. I am a massive Rick wakeman fan by the way, but I was so glad I didn’t go to O2 academy gig, awful venue and from what I saw on the clips , terrible and again short concert.

You can never accuse YES of short changing the audience in playing time.


Given that we are still living with the pandemic , and the cost of fuel is going through the roof, I thought if I don’t see them now, I may never get another chance.

[Davy]

Absolutely true, and I know 1st hand. The human element of music is mostly a good thing but there are occasional drawbacks.

Regarding the tempos specifically, if you listen fairly closely, you can tell it’s Howe slowing things down so he can keep up. He is in a constant tug of war with Jay, and Steve does not budge. You can hear Jay relenting and compensating all over the place. Steve had been doing this to Alan since 2008 or so as well from what I have noticed, probably earlier even.

At Steve’s age and somewhat reduced level of capability, more rehearsal might actually be a bad thing for him. More stress on the tendons and all that. It might actually make things worse to drill this stuff in an empty building for an extra month before a tour, as weird as that sounds.

This kind of plays into why it makes me scratch my head that they focus so much on classic material in the set list. It underscores the problems they are having. Steve is slowing down and everyone else is playing parts that were conceived by other people, and those parts are very distinctive to the creators. If the band focused more on newer material as a rule, it would sound like a healthier band. The “haters” would find the slow tempo or missed lick here and there much more forgivable.

In a way, Yes, as an entity refuses to acknowledge that it is no longer the 70’s, and that the entire lineup has changed , sans Howe, and it refuses to acknowledge that Howe is pushing 80. The newer guys are forced to be other people on stage (even 40 year veteran Downes) and Howe is forced to play the role of a 26 year old version of himself. Yet… they have released loads of albums since 1996, and 3 in the last 10 years that they could draw from on stage that were not recorded when Chris and Alan were eating asteroids and jet fuel for breakfast every day.

Yep! YesO is still a force to be reckoned with, though, when I saw them in Baltimore, they were smoking, and you could tell they were being held on a tight leash.

[highfell]

This happened to come up on my YouTube feed :

https://youtu.be/kPm0iHPfyG8

Made me smile - isn’t it just great to see them playing this so much energy and speed etc.

And at 5.27 that glass shattering sound which when played live on those 77 & 78 shows is just such an almost ear splitting amazing sound, was never sure if it was Howe or Wakeman and now I know its Howe. Great stuff.

Still annoyed, I missed hearing it at Nottingham.

[highfell]

No regrets. The tempos were still too slow. For such high ticket prices, there should be no rust. "Rust" is an excuse for a lack of rehearsals and, therefore, professionalism.

Btw, I thought that Wakeman's recent ERE gigs were poor too. Hayley Sanderson was awful, even worse than "Journey" at the RFH.

I struggle like you with a post Anderson Yes era. However, I really enjoyed Nottingham show and was sorely tempted to make the similar 6 hour round trip to Birmingham.

For me the ticket prices were very reasonable. Howe was on excellent form. And seeing him play so close up was a pleasure. of course they are playing slower, but they still sounded bloody good on the night live , I tell you.

[Kenny]

I struggle like you with a post Anderson Yes era. However, I really enjoyed Nottingham show and was sorely tempted to make the similar 6 hour round trip to Birmingham.

For me the ticket prices were very reasonable. Howe was on excellent form. And seeing him play so close up was a pleasure. of course they are playing slower, but they still sounded bloody good on the night live , I tell you.

That's a reasonable comment.

I don't know what the Nottingham prices were. The RAH prices for good seats were around £100, similar to YesfARW at the Apollo. Anderson must have lowered his demands for 50% of the band's fees. My main problem with YesfARW was that they were not loud enough. Lee Pomeroy and Iain Hornal were, generally, too low in the mix too