------------------------------------------------ SEPTEMBER 8, 2001 ------------------------------------------------- Source: New York Post http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/1790.htm JUST SAY YES  By Will Romano [PHOTO] A quarter century after the height of its success, Yes has a new album and has embarked on a multiple-city tour that hits Radio City tonight. September 8, 2001 -- YOU'LL have a hard time finding a '70s rock group that fell further or faster than Yes. You certainly don't have to remind the group's legendary guitarist, Steve Howe, of their demise, which came when the band's long, keyboard-heavy epics - which mixed classical, jazz, rock and other influences - fell out of favor. In fact, he'd rather you didn't. "Don't remind me," he says. But don't count out Yes just yet. Now, a quarter century after the height of their success and 17 years after their last hit, Yes has regrouped. They've produced a new album and are in the midst of a multiple-city tour - each with a different local symphony orchestra to back them - through Europe and North America, a trip that pulls into Radio City Musical Hall tonight at 8. The band, whose "Owner of a Lonely Heart" thrilled music fans in 1984, is back with "Magnification," Yes' first keyboard-free recording. The album is due out Oct. 2. "With the help of arranger Larry Groupé, we used a 45-piece orchestra to take the place of the keyboards - there's only a little bit of piano played by the drummer, Alan White," explains Howe, who weaves his guitar lines around a symphonic wall of sound. " 'Magnification' is definitely not throwaway material," says the 54-year-old. "It's classic Yes in the sense that the music is strong in the writing, performing and orchestration." At the concert, fans can expect to hear new material from the album, along with reinterpretations of such Yes classics as "Roundabout" and "Long Distance Runaround." Howe, singer-lyricist Jon Anderson and bassist Chris Squire will play a sampling of the 10 tracks on "Magnification," including standouts "Don't Go," "Give Love Each Day" (which clocks in at nearly 7 minutes and 45 seconds) and "Dreamtime" (a lengthy 10 minutes and 40 seconds). Yes formed in Birmingham, England, in 1968 and rode high through the '70s, but as the decade wore on, the band's sound began to overstay its welcome. Music fans preferred the raw sounds of punk, and critics soon followed. The final shove-off came in 1977, when rival band Emerson Lake & Palmer toured North America with a full symphony. The tour was a financial and critical disaster, and it spelled the beginning of the end for the band and the entire progressive-rock movement. Twenty-five years later - with the specter of ELP's genre-busting blunder looming large - the Yes tour proceeds with caution. "When ELP went out with an orchestra, they were taken to the cleaners," says Howe, who cringes at the comparison. "Don't remind me of their nightmare." If nothing else, Yes has not remained static. The band has reinvented itself throughout its 33-year career, with the last radical makeover occurring in the early '80s. Regrouping after a brief hiatus, Yes used cutting-edge production, a streamlined sound and a new lineup (less Howe), to reach the top of the charts with the song "Owner of a Lonely Heart" in 1984. Though the band suffered an identity crisis in the '90s, today its members are seen as rock-music visionaries. "Smart music really doesn't go out of fashion," says David Fricke, senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine. And Phil Ehart, founder of the band Kansas - which was dubbed "America's answer to Yes" when it debuted in 1970 - couldn't be effusive enough. "We were influenced by them before there was a Kansas," says Ehart. "They were so lofty, we were honored to be mentioned in the same breath." "I do what I do because of Yes," adds Neal Morse of neo-prog rock bands Spock's Beard and TransAtlantic. With "Magnification," Yes inches closer to the compositionally complex music of its youth. Having sold 14 million records and with a combined age of 216, this English rock quartet may be on its way to defining prog rock for the new millennium. "Well, who knows about that?" Howe replies. "However, I would say that this band's goals are still ambitious." Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, problems, corrections, or additions, contact YesinthePress@aol.com