Yesathon II...

Playlist

Yes - Big Generator

Yes - Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe

Yes - Union

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Variation on Brian Eno's "Thursday Afternoon"

Edward Spark - Whatmoved?

Yes- Talk

Yes - Keys To Ascension

Yes - Open Your Eyes

Yes - The Ladder

Yes - Magnification

Yes - Fly From Here

Yes - Heaven & Earth

Yes - The Quest

Up - new LP out today...

...but not till 8am, so, prior to that, the Yesathon continued - into the second half of the story, with the final vinyl record of my collection...

"Big Generator" featured the same line up as "90125" but the four years it took to record and release the album lost the group's commercial momentum...

I actually listened to this one before getting up - it was a little loud for 5 am but I've always enjoyed it...

Up and ready to continue, while doing final prep on my own latest LP's release...

Post "Big Generator", Jon Anderson once again left after the 1988 tour...

Within a year and he'd approached ex members Steve Howe, Bill Bruford and Rick Wakeman, individually, with a request to help him out on a solo album...

The first his erstwhile colleagues knew of each other's involvement was when they turned up at the airport to fly to the Caribbean to record...

Of course, in reality, this was supposed to be a new old version of Yes (with King Crimson's Tony Levin on bass and a couple of outside players involved too)..

However, legal wranglings with the rest of the group, Squire, Rabin, Kaye and White, meant that they could not use the name...

But the resulting album, rendered slightly "of its time" by Bruford electronic kit, was, for me, a Yes album in all but name...

Like "Tormato", I was pleasantly surprised that this exceeded my expectations, not having listened to it for a while and Bruford's drums weren't quite as "80s" as I'd recalled...

The LP was a relative success and the quartet reconvened to record a follow up.  Anderson once again met with Squire whose version of Yes had been recording new music too and auditioning new vocalists...

Once again management stepped in and a plan was hatched for an 8 man Yes to tour the world on the back of a combined album, "Union"...

Anderson was in charge of production and, it emerged later that he had the majority of Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe's parts re-recorded...

The tour was a huge success - the album too - but eventually the rancour returned, fueled in part by Anderson's decision re the recording and use of session players to flesh out the tracks initially produced by ABWH and "Yeswest"...

Once again, despite all the background nonsense, I've always enjoyed it...

And, of course, in those pre internet days, with the tour a big success, the fans were unaware of what had happened...

Approaching 8, it was time for final prep while listening back and then pressing the release button - another success...

Amazing...

Some catch up too on this...

Then, taking the EP and Jane to Waverley for their train to London, where they were set to enjoy "Les Miserables", Kew gardens and various other delights, including those of the dining variety...

After dropping them off, I parked over at Easter Road - listening to Edward Spark's new single in the car...

...before heading to Fopp to buy the new Yes album (even though I obtained a download from chum Jorg Sonnenschein two weeks ago)...

On the way, I passed the building where I started work in my first real job, on this day in 1981...

40 years of fun, kind of...

Mission accomplished...

Some shopping for provisions also undertaken and then home to update the website re the new release and WFH...

I had been advised to keep my ear open re the delivery of a parcel - I was doing so...

Back to the Yesathon...

After the Union tour, Howe and Bruford once again left the band and the "90125" line up, recorded what was to be the final LP with Trevor Rabin...

It was to have Wakeman on board too but he refused to leave his management company and so was eventually left off the record and went on his way...

"Talk" from 1994 was the record but it was a relative failure...

I like this one so much I bought it again with the bonus long version of the opening track. Unlike most later Yes albums, there are no clunkers on here. And the absolute epic, “Endless Dream” remains, for me, their best track since “Awaken” from "Going For the One"...

But, post this LP and tour, Rabin left the band to concentrate on lucrative film soundtrack work and Tony Kaye also departed...

Two years later, in a surprise announcement, Yes re-emerged in their "classic" lineup of Anderson Squire Howe Wakeman & White and put out two double CDs, each containing newly recorded studio tracks "Keys to Ascension" and live tracks recorded at a one off concert in California...

I count the 7 studio tracks, issued across these 2 2CD sets by the, so called, classic line up, as a single 75 min LP. And, as with most of the stuff I’ve not been listening to often enough over the last couple of years, I found it to be better than I’d expected...

Just a year later, Wakeman was gone again and Squire's cohort, Billy Sherwood entered the fray. along with keyboardist Igor Koroshev....  

The next LP was released with very little fanfare and, despite the presence of Steve Howe, harks back more to the Rabin days - it was masterminded by Squire and Sherwood, the latter trying to cross the bridge between what the fans saw as old and new Yes...

Anderson and Howe later criticised the record - presumably due to their minimal involvement in its creation...

I love this one too. Have done since buying on its release. Some really powerful playing, with Billy Sherwood handling most of the keys. He’s been so important to Yes over the last 2 decades & has contributed guitar, keys and drums as well as production...

The six man Yes, Anderson, Squire, Howe, White, Sherwood and Koroshev, went forward towards the end of the millenium with this release....

It's a much more democratic LP, with everybody writing and bringing influences to the table... 

It was well marshalled by the late Bruce Fairbairn and features quite a few backward looking references plus a couple of very strong lengthier pieces....

Unfortunatley, the majority of the band wanted now to concentrate on playing tracks from "the glory days" live and so, Sherwood, who was more interested in progressing the group's sound, exited...

Two years later, the band was back to its core of Anderson, Squire, Howe and White and brought an orchestra in instead of a new keyboard player for "Magnification"...

This turned out to be Anderson's last record with the group...

Now 20 years old, it has turned out to be a fitting bow out for the band’s “Napoleon”…

But there were more tours for another three years before he left - first the four piece plus orchestra then, Wakeman returned yet again and they toured playing the long epics from the 1970's...

A 35 year retrospective was released in 2003 and made the top ten...

But, in 2004, it was time for what turned out to be a six year break...

Four years in, a new tour was announced and Anderson advised new material was being written but then he unexpectedly fell ill and everything was cancelled...

At this point, I too took a break and Fang popped in for a visit...

At lunchtime, I finished off the Brazilian thing I'd been watching solo "No One Is Watching" I think it was called...

Back to work and WFH...

And into the final straits...

In 2010, the band decided to carry on without Anderson and recruited a new singer, from a Yes covers band, Benoit David...

In 2011, after a 10 year gap, the next LP, the first without Anderson since 1980's "Drama", finally emerged...

And there was a distincy link to "Drama"...

Rick Wakeman's son, Oliver, had been occupying the keyboard stoll for a year or so on tour and staretd the recording of the new LP but then it was announced the record would be produced by Trevor Horn,  with Geoff Downes returning on the keys...

The majority of "Fly From Here" was based on a song performed by Yes on their tour in 1980 but never recorded by them - there are extensive demos though, on the CD reissue of the second Buggles LP...

Again, this album was better than I'd remembered...

Jon Anderson had exited the band due to health problems in 2008 and, when they afflicted his replacement four years later, he fully expected to be invited back...

Instead, Chris Squire was introduced by mutual friend, Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters, to Jon Davison, who, like Benoit David before him, had a voice with an uncanny likeness to Jon Anderson's...

After two years of touring with the new line up, playing manily material form 1971-1983, a new LP emerged...

A big disappointment to most Yes fans, I actually enjoyed it at the time and still do - ok at least three of the tracks ought to have been dumped to produce a good 35 minute album by th0s "new" Yes...

In the Spring of 2015, Chris Squire became ill and had to pull out of a tour - he was replaced by his good friend Billy Sherwood...

Then, in the summer, Squire died...

He ha, however, decreed that the band, of which he was the sole original member, should continue, with Sherwood taking his place... 

Time for another break, with just the new LP to go...

I reassured Anne via Whatsapp that I had shut the curtains and put on the lights...

...and then set about cooking my tea - ribeye steak with onions, mushrooms and chips...

Result?  Extreme tastiness...

Back to the music and today's purchase...

Also extreme tastiness...

Despite lasting for fewer than the 80 minutes a CD can hold, it is split into two CDs, the second containing three bonus tracks...

It's almost as if they had heard what I've been saying about the previous LP for 7 years...

As I said when I obtained the download a couple of weeks ago, heard from outside the cage of expectation, this is a very good indeed 8 song LP (albeit with 3 not quite as good bonus tracks)...

Forget the past. Even though it was very good indeed, as demonstrated by my listening over the last two days...

This is a new Yes and it is Yes now...

And it is good...

With the Yesathon coming to an end, I set about recording this week's podcast...

However, problems with the laptop meant I didn't get started recording the links till around 11:30 and recording of the podcast itself didn't start till past midnight...

As a consequence, I finally hit the sack around 2:30...

While I'd been enjoying Yes, Anne and Jane had been whizzing down to that London, getting acquainted with their "digs", shopping at Liberty, enjoying a lovely meal and then also enjoying "Les Mis"...

Some pics were whatsapped and I am reproducing them here for the record...

A long but enjoyable day for all of us...

Meanwhile, the full story of Yes is here...

Highlight of the day : Yesathon II...  No, wait, good sales of my new LP...