----------------------------------------------------- AUGUST 1, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------- Source: Toronto Sun http://www.canoe.ca/TorontoShowbiz/ts.ts-08-01-0068.html Just say Yes Wakeman's return gives band twist on classics By Kieran Grant Being back with Yes has got to be gratifying for Rick Wakeman. The last time the progressive rock pioneers touched down in Toronto with last year's Yes Symphonic Tour, they had a full orchestra effectively taking the place of their vaunted keyboard player. Wakeman's return for Yes' current tour, which brought them to the Molson Amphitheatre last night, has been rightly greeted as a restoration of the band's classic lineup -- which also includes singer Jon Anderson, guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Chris Squire, and drummer Alan White. That's not bad for a guy who actually came late to the band in 1971 and left after five years, joining in only sporadically after that. But while Wakeman's re-emergence sparked understandable excitement in last night's crowd of 6,000, the show wasn't a simple rehash of Yes' '70s heyday. That, it seems, would have been just too easy for a band built on the principal of creating ornate, complicated rock music through dizzying musicianship. (The famously flamboyant Wakeman left the floor-length capes of his formative years in the tickle trunk, but was kind enough to still sport his Prince Valiant hair and a silvery overcoat to go with his bandmates '80s swashbuckler look. Trendy fellows, they ain't.) Instead, Yes picked carefully through both their early output -- favouring 1972's Fragile over other albums -- and their latter-day material to put together a cohesive two-set show, even at the expense of hits such as 1983's Owner Of A Lonely Heart. Classic extendo-jams such as Siberian Khatru, their radical 1972 rethink of Simon & Garfunkel's America, and South Side Of The Sky were interspersed with new songs Deeper and Magnification, which, even if some fans seized them as opportunities to go grab a beer, had a floaty likability to them. It was a diversion from the usual classic rock procedure where bands -- Yes among them in the past -- sabotage their setlists with fresh evidence that they've lost the plot. Also, despite Yes' insistence on playing a dozen notes where three might do, they can still pull such forays off. Helium-voiced Anderson, whose increasingly fragile pipes haven't lost their effectiveness, and Wakeman provided an airy envelope to Howe and Squire's noodling. On the other hand, the group's studied approach did little to make up for a thin sound mix. There was a sense that they would have done better in a theatre -- or at least with a bit more ballast. Second set journeys through Heart Of The Sunrise, Fish, and encore takes on Roundabout and Yours Is No Disgrace corrected this. But when your songs are so weighty you can get through only a dozen of them in three hours, it's best to sort these things out early. Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, problems, corrections, or additions, contact YesinthePress@aol.com