Yes Featuring Anderson, Rabin, Wakeman
Live at the Apollo
Review by Gary Hill
It seems that a common occurrence these days is for different factions within a classic band to form versions of the band and go out and tour. Well, it has now become a thing with Yes. I suppose that it actually happened years ago when Jon Anderson left the Rabin era group after Big Generator to form Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe.
Change is really a constant in the history of Yes. The band has one of the most dynamic and steadily shifting line-ups out there. That said, despite all the other changes, there really are two different approaches and eras of the group. The classic period of the band could be considered the Steve Howe era. The Trevor Rabin period in the 1980s was really, in terms of sound and textures, a completely different era of the group. It was focused perhaps a bit less on virtuoso musicianship and more on a dense vocal presence with multiple voices and a more screaming, almost heavy metal, guitar sound. Steve Howe's finesse was replaced with a lot of sheer power. That's an over-simplification for the sake of brevity, but it's reasonably accurate. In some ways, then, I think that it's appropriate that there are these two groupings out there representing both main eras of the band.
This live set captures the Rabin-era outfit in fine form. All three of the main players sound on top of their game here. I would say that perhaps they played it a bit safe in terms of the set-list. I saw the Rabin grouping several times in the 80s, and this seems pretty close to the expected set list from that time period (excluding the Talk tour which was quite different). Either way, though, it's a great way to revisit that sound. Also, I should add that this grouping does seem to lean a bit closer to the sound of the other era of the band than they did at the time. There might be some arguments about names and rights and stuff within the world of the musicians themselves. I've seen that spill out into fandom with various fans seeming to feel that you can only like one group or the other. I don't think that's the right answer. I think that perhaps we should look at it as more Yes music to love, and with two somewhat different flavors represented.
This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) form in Music Street Journal: 2018 Volume 5. More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2018.
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