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SEPTEMBER 19, 2003
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Source: The Age (Australia)
http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2003/09/19/1063625143853.htm
For the Fifth Time, Yes
By Michael Dwyer
The first time Rick Wakeman walked was over Tales From Topographic Oceans.
The 1970s' foremost synthesiser wiz enjoyed an epic dose of rock-classical
fusion as much as any member of Yes, but his third album with them - the
four-sided epic of 1974 - was simply "crap".
His protest famously involved a takeaway curry, devoured live on a
Manchester stage when he should have been playing keyboards. It's just one
absurd scene in a 35-year legend that rivals This Is Spinal Tap among
rock's least sane adventures - capes and all.
"I do have most of the capes," the 54-year-old keyboard maestro confirms
from a Tokyo hotel, where he's booked under the shrewd anti-groupie
identity of Bob Upandown.
"I have four of the big originals, though I'm missing the white Journey To
the Centre of the Earth one. A lot of them were auctioned off for
charities, and over the last few years I've ended up buying 'em back for
huge amounts of money.
"I wear them when I go out with my own band, but I don't wear 'em on the
Yes shows. The way Yes dress now, it would be out of keeping. But my own
band - we're not glam rock, we're sort of glam prog," he cackles. "So a
cape is good for that."
Despite the deathly serious intentions of Radiohead, Muse, the Doves and
other defiantly arty newcomers, a sense of humour is still a handy thing if
you're in the business of prog or progressive rock.
With their looooong, multi-part song movements, their dazzling mega-muso
interplay and singer Jon Anderson's tea-with-the-pixies lyrics, Yes were,
and remain, the ultimate exponents of the much-maligned genre.
"I just saw it as another branch of rock music," says Wakeman, who was
already a star with the Strawbs when he joined Anderson, bassist Chris
Squire, guitarist Steve Howe and original drummer Bill Bruford for Yes's
fourth album, Fragile, in 1971.
"Music tends to develop to suit musicians, and just because I had a
classical training didn't mean I didn't like rock'n'roll. I only knew how
to play one way, but I wanted to play rock'n'roll, so you got the fusion of
the two.
"I always objected to people who said it was overblown and pompous. I mean,
to some extent it is, but you're there to play what you feel, what's in
your heart.
"One of the nicest compliments I can recall was from Steve Cropper
(legendary soul guitarist for Booker T and the MGs, Otis Redding and Wilson
Pickett). We had dinner recently and he said, `I love Yes. I love anything
that has soul'."
It could only be some such divine essence that reunited the classic '70s
line-up of Yes last year (including John Lennon's former drummer, Alan
White, who replaced Bruford 30 years ago). Many books have been filled with
the artistic differences and corporate backroom bungles that have buffeted
their journey.
Wakeman insists he only left Yes twice. The other two times he was elbowed
out by managers and record companies keen to sustain one of rock's most
lucrative stadium ventures in whatever form necessary.
Many fans still cringe to recall that Wakeman and Anderson were replaced in
1980 by the Buggles (you know, Video Killed the Radio Star). Yes's
subsequent Australian hit, Owner of a Lonely Heart, was representative of
nothing but commercial compromise.
By the late '80s there were two Yesses at war: Squire and White owned the
name, while Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe went out under the less
pithy moniker of Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe.
"I can put my hand on my heart and say I always got on with everybody,"
Wakeman says. "But that was a difficult situation, admittedly, of which the
ideal solution was to put the two bands together."
Well, ideal-ish. With eight men jostling for position, the Union album and
tour of '91 was both more and less than the corporation required. Soon
after, Wakeman found himself a former member of Yes for the fourth time.
"I can still remember the record company saying, `As far as the fans are
concerned, they don't care who is in Yes'. And they got it wrong," he hoots
with relish. "They got it wrong, big-time."
No member of Yes has enjoyed greater extracurricular success than Wakeman.
His Journey To the Centre of the Earth was one of the biggest-selling
albums of the '70s, and The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the
Knights of the Round Table was memorably staged with a 45-piece orchestra
and 48-voice choir - on ice.
But once again, he's found it impossible to say no to Yes.
"I've missed it terribly. I'd be a liar if I said I didn't, because the
band is a part of my soul, really. It's almost a Richard Burton-Elizabeth
Taylor syndrome," he says with a raucous laugh.
"And the response has been unbelievable. When we started touring this time
I was stunned and, seriously, moved. I could not believe what this line-up
meant to hardcore Yes fans. Every now and then there's a band where the sum
of the members equals a greater number. The Beatles were a classic example.
I think you could say that about the Who, bless 'em, when they were all
with us, and Led Zeppelin when Bonzo was alive. This particular line-up of
Yes is another example."
Wakeman tempts fate by placing Yes in such immortal company. This
Australian tour was originally scheduled for February and postponed after
Jon Anderson fell off a ladder on to some steps, breaking five vertebrae
and requiring six months of convalescence.
It followed an accident last September in which Wakeman wrote off his BMW
between a lorry and a parked car on a motorway. He suffered internal
injuries, but flew off "in absolute agony" for US dates.
"Then, when I came back for the first show, Chris takes his bass off and
swings it around in the air at the end, just as Alan gets off the drum kit,
and breaks his nose! I shouldn't laugh."
God, no. But it sure does help.
Yes play at Vodafone Arena, tonight, with guests Sebastian Hardie 2003.
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