----------------------------------------------------- JULY 25, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------- Source: Kansas City Star http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/music/3728174.htm Concert review: Audience just says Yes to celebrated lineup By Timothy Finn The problem with progressive rock these days is that most of the bands are fixated on being excessively gothic, percussive and industrial. Tuesday night Yes, a 1970s British prog-rock band with a Beatles fetish, came to that place that everyone still calls Sandstone. The crowd that showed up to watch and listen was relatively small, but it was devout and in the mood to sit back for three hours and listen to a band that rarely compromised its steadfast principles: Be bright and melodic (unlike its successors), and be ready to perform prodigiously and precisely. Yes has been famous for changing its lineups the last 34 years, but the version that performed Tuesday was its most celebrated: lead vocalist Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, drummer Alan White, guitarist Steve Howe and keyboardist Rick Wakeman. Tuesday's show was long and satisfying, but it began inauspiciously. The opener was "Siberian Khatru," and the first five minutes of this 13-minute anthem felt a bit ragged and slightly out of sync, as if it were a dress rehearsal for the band, the sound engineers and the stage techs. Everyone quickly found their bearings by the time the band rolled into its overarching cover of Paul Simon's "America." Anderson cheerily dedicated that tune to the spirit of our Heartland, but the song had other implications, especially when he sang: "She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy..." The rest of the first set was devoted to older tunes that most of the crowd recognized immediately: "South Side of the Sky," from the 1972 album "Fragile," and "The Revealing Science of God," from "Tales From Topographic Oceans." Both were typical, epic Yes numbers: four refined musicians responding to one another while Anderson laid his frothy falsetto over their roiling, musical intercourse. After two riveting guitar concertos from Steve Howe, the band broke for 20 minutes and then returned for more solo work: Anderson's "Show Me" and then a keyboard bonanza from Wakeman that included a few stanzas (with Anderson) of "And You and I." Although he is well into his 50s, Anderson's falsetto is nonetheless like his head of hair: sturdy and boyish. One of the best hard-rock moments of the night came during the jagged and jaunty "Don't Kill the Whale," an urgent guitar anthem from the overlooked "Tormato" album. After that, Squire took the solo spotlight and grooved the house like Stanley Clarke, especially on the intro to "Silent Wings of Freedom" (another "Tormato" treat). The night ended with a hefty one-two punch. First, an abbreviated version of "Roundabout" -- the "mainstream" tune that Yes is destined to perform always; and then "Yours Is No Disgrace," from the 31-year-old "The Yes Album," a record that -- like the band itself -- has aged respectably. Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, problems, corrections, or additions, contact YesinthePress@aol.com