YesTsongs

Yes was one of the first big concerts I went to - Boston Garden, nosebleed seats, Tale of Topographic Oceans tour. It was awesome: they had the Roger Dean sets with the chrysalis pods that the band came out of like in Spinal Tap. So I was pretty psyched to watch Yes: 35th Anniversary Concert: Songs from Tsongas (2004). For me it was more of a 45th anniversary, but whatever.

The concert comes on two discs (for a single queue slot - bargain). I figured that meant a lot of additional material. The first disc had a good solid set, about an hour and a half. I figure the second disc would be the encore and additional material. But I was wrong. There was about another two hours of the concert. After the first encore, I gave up and said, "Don't let them do another encore."

The band was the classic Anderson, Howe, Wakeman, Squire, and White lineup that I saw so many years ago. Anderson, Howe, and White looked like prosperous, stylish middle-aged Englishmen - I'd say they have aged well, although Squire's feathered hairdo may be a little out of date. Rick Wakeman has dropped most of his pudginess and looks quite formidable, sort of like Iggy Pop in a Dutchboy wig. Steve Howe, on the other hand, looks like a monkey who has been turned into a wizard. On him, it's a good look.

The Tsongas Center in Lowell looked like a much better hall than the Garden, and they had (slightly less elaborate) Roger Dean sets again.

The second set starts out acoustic, which was interesting, but actually doesn't sound much different than their electric numbers. Then, for the set change, Steve Howe sits down to play a little solo ragtime number. This number represented for me the whole show, because every verse would get close the end, then he'd through in a little flourish, an extra riff, a digression, and before you know it, your back to the start of another verse. Hey Howe, if you get near an ending, jump off!

OK, so it was long. They sounded great - Anderson could hit all the notes (he claimed to have some trouble remembering the words, but I didn't notice). Wakeman made all kinds of orchestral noises, and had some very cool miniMoog mono solos. Howe played those complicated lines on a series of guitars, including the pedal steel and a Portuguese guitar, which is sort of like a 12-string guitar played like a mandolin. The old songs were perfect, but I wasn't too impressed by the newer (post-Topographic Oceans) stuff. "Going for the One" was better than I remembered, and I even kind of liked "Odor of a Lonely Fart" (as I call it), but some of the others were downright embarrassing.

Anyway, we watched the last encore the next day. It was "Starship Trooper", one of my favorites. But I didn't really love this rendition. Maybe they were tired, maybe I was. But overall, great concert.