Yes and 50 piece orchestra.Story and Photos by Phil Bonyata
Musically speaking, Yes isn't satisfied until they find a new way to go over the top. Whose idea was it to add a 50 piece orchestra to their already heavily layered and over produced sound. Imagine when these guys heard Nirvana blasting out of their radios for the first time. As they winced they were probably thinking of a way to slap on some soft instrumental layers to deflate the urgent power chords into a meandering and pointless merry-go-round.
Yes set-up it's elephantine musical ensemble at the Riverside Theatre last night and unleashed all of it's progressive rock cliches on the aging, but wanting audience.
Lead singer Jon Anderson, clad in a frumpy red tunic with sparkly purple pants, started it on "Close to the Edge" with his high-pitched voice and wimpy stage persona fighting for life against the bottomless pit of directionless sound coming forth from fellow Yes vets Chris Squire and Steve Howe. Squire's bass lines seem to be the closest thing to real rock that these guys have in their bags of collective prog-rock standards.
"Roundabout" was the best tune of the evening because of it's more melodic and simplified rock approach. On 70's staples like "And You And I" and "Wonderous Stories" showed that Yes' rather unique blend of classical, English traditional and American pop influences go happily around and around acheiving a kind of twisted perpetual motion. Their music is like long and winding roads that are more like a Sunday drive to nowhere then trying to reach a specific destination. It's hard to tell when one song finishes and the next one starts. Anderson's silly lyrics on "Get Up/Get Down " only made you wish that the electricity in the building failed and all that we would be left with was the natural sound of the orchestra.
 Chris Squire |
 Jon Anderson |
 Steve Howe |
