----------------------------------------------------- JULY 29, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------- Source: Ohio Beacon Journal http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/entertainment/music/3756431.htm Rock group Yes endures through decades Despite sometimes conflicting views of members and multiple obstacles, band is still going strong By Brad Kava Sometimes it seems that the universe is saying a big NO to the rock group Yes. Almost every year, says Jon Anderson, who has been the main singer for most of 34 years, something happens that threatens to sink this mainstay of progressive rock. And just as often, the group takes a clue from its appropriately upbeat name and things magically turn around. Take last year, for example. Members of the band, scattered up the West Coast from Santa Barbara to Seattle and across the Atlantic to their native England, gathered to record an album that was a return to the epic-song form. They not only brought in a symphony orchestra to add icing to the music, but they also wrote songs merging rock and symphony. The resulting CD, Magnification, was deemed a success by these highly critical musicians, and they waited to see how it would do on the charts. Unfortunately, the album was released Sept. 11. And a month later, the record label, Beyond, went out of business. ``We got strangled,'' said Anderson, 57. ``We haven't had a hit album in 10 years, but we're still good. We worked three months on this and thought we really had something. ``We are supposed to be Yes, very positive, but we find that you are climbing a mountain every year with this band. And every year it's a different mountain.'' Yes, which plays tonight at Blossom Music Center, has amazed even long-term fans with some of its paths to success. For example in the mid-1980s, radio stations stopped playing the long forms of songs by groups such as Yes and King Crimson because they took too much time away from ads. Yes had fallen apart. Keyboard player Rick Wakeman and Anderson pursued solo projects. Guitarist Steve Howe joined Asia. But new members Trevor Rabin and Trevor Horn, who were brought in to fill out a touring contract for the old band, came up with the song Owner of a Lonely Heart. Anderson returned to sing it, and the resulting most un-Yes-like album, 90125, became the band's biggest, selling 8 million copies. That success bred a problem that followed it for the next two decades. Anyone who has seen the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap can relate: lots of conflicting ideas about which direction to take. This band is rare in that it has survived for decades as a democracy. Bands such as the Rolling Stones, the Who and Aerosmith have one or two relatively benevolent dictators, and the other members do what they are told and rake in their share. After its 1983 success, Yes was split between those who wanted to write another hit single and those who wanted to return to the longer, symphonic pieces that had launched the band's first round of success. The band even split in two for a while at the end of the 1980s: One group played shorter songs and kept the name Yes; the other -- Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe -- tried to recapture the earlier spirit. The deck shuffled several times over the next decade, with Yes touring in all sorts of guises. Some spent time working on catchy songs, such as Love Will Find a Way, which was a hit only in Puerto Rico, while others wanted to create longer, classically inspired tales. Two years ago, it found a lost chord with the excellent Masterworks tour, which returned to the long songs. Last year, Yes toured with a symphony orchestra. This year, with Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Alan White and returning keyboard player Rick Wakeman, it will mix classic old songs with those from the doomed Magnification. Next year, Anderson said, the band may stage a Yes-fest, a daylong show with various bands that share its spirit. ``We expected it to last, maybe, three years,'' Anderson said, recalling the beginning of the band in 1968. ``Then in the 1970s people said, `In 10 years, people will still be playing your music.' Well, half of that is true. The radio doesn't play our music, but people buy our records. ``We've survived the many storms.'' Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, problems, corrections, or additions, contact YesinthePress@aol.com