2024-05-13 00:12:29
Even as a young Progster you had to decide: Are you more Team Genesis or Team Yes, i.e. more aggressive and romantic or more esoteric and fiddly? I’ve always been a Genesis man. But we’re not into football, so of course I’ve been going to Yes for decades. I’ve always had no expectations, never been disappointed, rather been pleasantly surprised again and again.
It wasn’t so easy in the Berlin Theater at Potsdamer Platz. Rock music, especially loud and live and on stage, needs space for movement. A drum bridge placed precisely in the right place in the air, and the hands in general, they have to fly if there is something to underline in the text or music.
And of course there’s a lot of that in progressive rock. You should also sing along, that’s clear, demonstrate textual certainty and connoisseurship. And feel a little sorry when the world ends again.
But now you’re sitting there, parquet floor, row 11, seat 9, in plush red cinema seating and fighting with the man next to you for the right to armrest, like in economy class on the plane to Crete.
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I don’t quite understand why the two of them are here, because apparently what they want most is peace and quiet. How the majority of the audience reacts rather reservedly to the fact that there are real people on stage. Well, it doesn’t have to be the expressive dance that some substance users celebrate on the sides of the hall. But it’s a lot closer to this rock’n’roll thing than the neighbor’s piqued looks at my drum hands.
Seated concerts are a sin against the spirit of live concerts and should be banned. Basta. If you don’t want to stand for two hours, you should stay at home and watch a BluRay. And for those who can’t stand, there are a few rows of chairs in the back. It used to work too.
I mean: Steve Howe stands for over two hours, a 77-year-old hyperleptosome without an ounce of body fat and enviable fitness. Of course, he is the reigning mega-genius of the current highly gifted formation of Yes.
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Howe’s playing, utterly distinctive, is why most people are here. He knows how good he is, but in a likeable way. He’s always teasing the audience; he’s never been much more inaccessible on stage.
The fact that Jay Schellen replaces the late Alan White, who was recently severely affected by his suffering, makes Howe and Yes more stable. There is again more room for improvisation and deviations – very nice at the end of “The South Side of The Sky”, when even singer Jon Davison made all sorts of drums mounted on the bells and that was a really colorful, free, chaotic yes-fiddle with three delayed climax.
The setlist on this tour is a sophisticated mix of classics and standards (but not: “Owner of a lonely heart”), a few light surprises and of course the centerpiece of the evening. “Tales from Topographic Oceans”, condensed into twenty minutes.
“Tales”, that four-page album that you once indulged in to excess and then didn’t listen to for a long, long, long time – three decades – because you no longer had the peace or in the end even believed the critics who said it for you pompous nonsense that was destroyed by punk.
You can hear it again now, sex with your ex for your ears and stomach, the hairs on your arms stand up every second, and the lyrics are still there. And, no, Yes are not a gentle hippie group with butterflies in their heads. The metal content can easily compete with Metallica’s black hit album.
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All of this also wakes up the occupants of the red sleep chairs in the theater. During the encores, “Roundabout” and the, as always, incredibly casual “Starship Trooper,” a few audience members stand up and then everyone stands up for the applause. It works.
That Yes magic again: I shrugged my shoulders, was prepared for failure, and then was taken in and captivated by this wonderful music that burned itself into my brain stem when I was twelve or thirteen years old. What happens is always the same: for the next three weeks I’ll only listen to Yes. And then no more. And then comes the next tour.
#prog #rock #seat #concert #important #music