------------------------------------------------------- JUNE 17, 2004 ------------------------------------------------------- Source: Financial Times http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer/?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373080083 Musical love that dare not speak its name By James Woodall I have a confession to make. I am a fan of Yes. Not, you'll understand, of the affirming word, although the good life is unimaginable without it. I mean the rock group. In the early 1970s, Yes were enormous. They faded and became a bit of a joke and now they're back, 35 years after they formed, making records and touring. To see a band that began life when I was in primary school was too good an opportunity to pass up, so this week I made my way to Munich's Olympiahalle to check them out: their first German gig on a tour that will take them across Europe, then on to America. As I waited in the half-empty hall for the show to start, I pondered the sins this British quintet stand accused of. Yes were purveyors of a type of progressive rock that didn't know how to control itself: sumptuous instrumental textures, barmy cosmic lyrics, songs that go on for half an hour. I loved it all. Their cash cow was the States, where, like Atlantic Records stablemates Led Zeppelin, they packed stadia around the country, though they were much, much better behaved off-stage than Jimmy Page's marauding cohorts. The three albums I listened to obsessively were The Yes Album, Fragile and Close to the Edge. If that list hasn't completely wiped out any vestiges of cool I might once have possessed, it gets worse. I also owned Tales from Topographic Oceans. For anyone who had tolerated Yes in the early 1970s, this double-vinyl monster, released in 1974, was a step too far. I'm afraid I liked it. Lead singer Jon Anderson had read (he said) the Shastric scriptures, which had inspired him to pen words that belonged less to rock than to philosophy on an off day. "Where does reason stop and killing just take over? Does the lamb cry out before we shootit dead?" is one such gem of a couplet from disc one. Against punk, Yes didn't stand a chance. Tales from Topographic Oceans was number one on the hit-list for punk loathing. The band's ethereal image - a high-voiced Anderson in white, bassist Chris Squire in furry thigh-boots, keyboardist Rick Wakeman in sequined capes - marked them out as the arch- exemplars of rock'n'roll pretentiousness. As Jethro Tull's front man Ian Anderson said: "The music was great, but if you saw them standing in a bus queue, you'd want to go up and poke them with a sharp stick." In the Olympiahalle audience, there were no teenagers. There were lots of men, many with beards and bulging stomachs. More distressing were those clad in Yes T-shirts, advertising not just this tour but last year's and one from the year before that. There is a horde of long-term devotees out there. I didn't know they existed. As the curtain went up, the omens darkened: the stage was bedecked with inflatable black-and-white objets, a cross between Joan Miró and a bouncy castle gone wrong. Designer: Roger Dean, responsible for Yes's record covers, depicting fantastic landscapes, the occasional dragon and on one, Relayer, a whorl of caves and peaks that looks like used chewing-gum. Were Yes really going to pass themselves off in 2004 as the band of 20-something rock-noodlers they were when I was 16? Yes. And no. Yes, because they played all their famous tracks: "Yours Is No Disgrace", "And You and I", "Going for the One" and, into hour three of the evening, somewhat to my shock and maybe to that of others, though it didn't seem so from the rapture that greeted it, the whole of Side 4 of Topographic Oceans. Massive solos and all the detail were there. It was in fact rather thrilling - but also as if New Wave, Disco and the 1990s had never happened. No, because, paradoxically, Yes perform today as if they are a new band: tight, precise, loud. They always were excellent musicians and the best of them, Rick Wakeman, bored by the self-indulgence of the mid-1970s work, quit. But he's back and has clearly instilled a sense of proportion into Yes's galloping ambitions. The five look in decent shape; only a tall, grey-haired Squire offends good taste in black leggings. Anderson is sober in a dark suit. Whippet-thin Steve Howe - lead guitarist - resembles a startled university lecturer. Drummer Alan White is bald. Wakeman, trademark long blond hair in full flow, is a commanding stage presence but there are no antics. After an interval, he sits at a piano, with Anderson, Squire and Howe holding acoustic guitars. The band unleashes an ironic, honky-tonk "Roundabout", from Fragile, which used to be their rousing encore. Is it possible these guys are taking the piss? If Wakeman has anything to do with it, yes. This is a band that knows its history. They have, disconcertingly, embraced postmodernism. On stage, they are completely convincing. Perhaps there's no need now to say no to Yes. Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, inquiries, corrections, or additions, contact yitp@yesservices.com