YES
Hammersmith Odeon,
London
POOR BLOKE. Little Trevor, the Ronnie Corbett lookalike, was showing great vocal strain. After the current mega tour he just couldn’t handle parts of this show, his voice had alread been well blasted.
Apart from that the gig was a near triumph. No cries for Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman as I expected, the Buglets seem to have settled down into the Yes fold. If there’s going to be a split then they hid it pretty well —
Straight into ‘Does It Really Happen’. Squire in usual pulverising form carrying the thing through on his wide shoulders. As yet our Trev just doesn’t seem to have quite the charisma of Anderson and it was a miserable night for him, standing meekly at the back after most songs.
The nostalgia value if ‘Yours Is No Disgrace’ could have carried it through alone, but Horn, to his credit, handled it with all the guts and power of Anderson.
’Into The Lens’ is still very Buggles orientated and maybe a bit too spikey for the stage but it didn’t lose out a great deal live.
Howe played a lengthy solo spot beginning with ‘The Clap’ and finishing with mighty histrionics. ‘And You And I’ was a superlative version where Horn’s frail voice was well suited to the temperament of the song. Squire’s solo was another of his effortless exercises beginning with a version of ‘Amazing Grace’ (I kid you not) and ending in a tremendous battle of notes with White.
The pulsing ‘Machine Messiah’ was followed by Starship Stooper, 10 minutes of cataclysmic pomp that still sounds fresh to these ears. As I was saying it was a near triumph and much better than seeing them from two miles back at Wembley Arena.