The Metal Files

I’ve been a big YES fan since childhood mainly because of my brother’s influence.  Fragile and Close to the Edge stayed in steady rotation with him.  As the 80s rolled around, YES got super big with 90125.  You couldn’t get away from it.  Not necessarily a bad thing but Owner of a Lonely Heart got a little old.

I bought two tickets some months back on the presale and one of them ended up going unused.  The show crept up on me and I didn’t get proper time to find a date for the show.  Oh well.

Prior to the show I grabbed a quick dinner then met up with my friend, Armando, for a couple of beers.  Good drummer and good dude.  Show was slated to start at 8PM so we went to the venue, I bought a shirt and we parted ways to our seats.  It was actually a bit nice to have some space next to me.

The band came on stage and opened with Cinema and Perpetual Change.  Rick Wakeman was wearing a huge cape, of course.  The overall show was fantastic and I was really surprised that this older crowd stood for most of it.  They played a good cross section of YES material while definitely touching on the Rabin era often.  They even played an ABWH song, The Meeting.  Jon’s voice sounded absolutely amazing and it was great to finally see/hear Wakeman live.

During The Fish (I think), Wakeman and Rabin came out into the crowd and walked around the venue.  That was pretty cool.  Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the show but as in the 80s, I can’t stand Rabin’s hyper-sonic guitar tone.  He’s a great player though and his voice still sounds great.  The lefty bassist primarily played Rickenbackers the whole night and a Fender for 1 song.  Both he and the drummer were spot on.

Too bad that these guys, Howe and White can’t settle differences and do one more reunion tour.

photo by Alissa M

photo by Alissa M

photo by Armando

Keytars and capes1