----------------------------------------------- JULY 20, 2001 ----------------------------------------------- Source: Reno Gazette-Journal http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/entertainment/996264583.php Yes starts new tale in Reno British band teams with philharmonic for symphonic show By Forrest Hartman Yes is many things to many people. To fans from the 1970s, it’s the cutting-edge band responsible for anti-pop like “Roundabout,” “Starship Trooper” and “Close to the Edge.” To kids of the ’80s, it’s the dance-rock group that dished out radio-friendly hits like “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and “Rhythm of Love.” And to music historians, it’s the most enduring of the early, progressive rock outfits. Sunday, the band looks to add one more asterisk to its name, as it opens the YesSymphonic Tour at the City Center Pavilion. The group will be backed by the Reno Philharmonic in its first orchestral concert in more than three decades. “Reno is a first-first because not only is it the first tour we’ve done with an orchestra, but it’s the first show,” said longtime guitarist Steve Howe this week. The group, which has seen many incarnations over the past 30 years, now consists of Howe, vocalist Jon Anderson, bass player Chris Squire and drummer Alan White. Those four are among the best-known Yessers, but longtime fans will likely miss keyboard player Rick Wakeman. Howe said Wakeman was invited to work on both the tour and the group’s forthcoming orchestral album, but he was unable to do so. For the live shows, the band hired keyboard player Tom Brislin to fill in the sound. “Due to different fluctuations in the world of keyboards we felt that this was the appropriate thing to do, was to get somebody in who has not had any history with us,” Howe said. “Tom is a musician who is extremely familiar with Yes music … and he comes with an interesting sort of pedigree, where he’s young, he’s done some touring with Meat Loaf and he’s got his own band up in New Jersey that he does some work with. This is something that he’d love to do, so I think he’s going to do it with a lot of emotion and commitment.” The core group has been practicing in Reno for about two weeks, but they’re yet to rehearse with the philharmonic. Howe admits that nobody is completely sure what Sunday’s show will sound like. “We know more or less what it’s going to be, but there’s an element of surprise,” he said. “The only way you can try it is to play. It’s not something you can, all that much, test on paper because of the timbre of the sound. We just hope it can work. That’s our dream to see it work, so we’re doing everything we can to make it work.” Howe and company’s main task in practice has been to make sure the band sounds tight. “We have to be tight and we have to be on the arrangement,” Howe said. “That’s our job, really, to play the way we always do. Having said that, starting this week there are opportunities for us to work with technology and have maybe a synthesized orchestra with us in rehearsal. We’ll take some note of that, but obviously we know that the acoustic orchestra … has a lot more natural ambience, so it sounds rather different than a keyboard interpretation, even though the samples might be quite good.” Despite the uncertainties, Howe is pleased with the tour’s experimental nature. He said it fits well with the Yes mission. “This is a challenge not only for us but for the local musicians,” he said. “It’s interesting that Yes is kind of interacting on a local level. Everywhere we go we’re pulling in roughly 45 people from that area, and we’re going to play with them. That, in a way, shows the experimentation that we’re trying to do, which is to bring something together, to make something different from what we could conceive of ourselves.” For the most part, the band will play material from last year’s “Masterworks” tour, which focused on longer works, like “The Gates of Delirium.” Howe said playing material like that has reinvigorated the group because, for many years, it relied on a very small portion of its repertoire. “The best thing we’ve done is ‘Masterworks’ because that, in a way, threw out some of the material that we’d been using as a bit of a crutch,” he said. “When we put things like ‘Ritual’ back in the set, from ‘Topographic,’ we were making it harder for ourselves, which is good.” IF YOU WANT TO GO: * Who: Yes with the Reno Philharmonic * When: 7 p.m. July 22 * Where: Silver Legacy's City Center Pavilion * Cost: $25, $35, $45, $50 * Tickets: They are available at www.silverlegacy.com and Tickets.com outlets,    (800) 225-2277 or www.tickets.com. * Details: 329-4777 or (800) 687-7733 Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, problems, corrections, or additions, contact YesinthePress@aol.com