I've been hesitant to post anywhere about the show I saw (Detroit), because I don't want to come off as raining on everyone's parade. But I have to say it was the weirdest Yesshow I've ever attended, some reasons being obvious of course. Now, I'm glad I went, of course, to at least have some outlet to pay respects to Chris.
Steve Howe seems to be the default guy now in charge of getting the crowd going - Jon Davison, being the singer, should be, but he's not very good at it, to be honest. Maybe he's just to mellow and soft spoken - great at mimicking Jon Anderson's parts, but not very good at holding a crowd. Steve has to learn on the fly how to do that, IMO (he tried to verbally get the crowd going, but he speaks too quickly in a noisy environment - I missed most of what he was saying
) . I think with that extra duty on his plate, at least for the first bit of the show he wasn't as spot on playing wise as he's almost always been in the past.
The setlist was great, but boy was it an odd low energy show, at least until Siberian Khatru came around. Other than Howe trying to ramp up his normal stage presence a little bit, the rest of the band seemed a bit lacklustre - Chris' stage presence was *hugely* missed. I don't mean the finger in the air to pluck an E string showboating, but just his general command of the audience's attention from the stage. Downes had his back to the crowd due to his setup, and I found him hard to hear for the most part. Alan White - I kept having to remind myself that he was up there with the rest of them. Billy Sherwood does get a really nice grind out of those Spectors, and for the most part has the lines down as much as is needed. Chris being gone had a very large impact of the vocals of the band as well - Sherwood can sing, but both he and Howe seemed to not want to really step up to the mic, which is sort of understandable. I will admit a personal bias in that I loved Squire's singing voice, particularly the way it blended and seemed to create even more character out of that blending, whereas Billy's voice doesn't do much for me, and it doesn't have that same effect during the Yes harmonies. And obviously harmonies are *very* important in Yes tunes...
Finally, the crowd. Earlier in the tour I'd read a review by a guy that crowed about being moved up to 8th row, and I thought that a little odd. Well, when I looked around at the Detroit crowd at various times, there were an alarming number of sections of empty seats, and even more sobering, this was the first Yes show I've ever attended where a noticeable chunk of the crowd actually started heading out during the encores to beat the traffic.
I know people like to quote Anderson, Wakeman and Squire about Yes carrying on like a symphony orchestra well into the future, but I don't buy it, unless they just plan to play their past releases until the end. I guess the ticket sales will ultimately determine what happens, but I don't think anyone would posit that idea for any other classic '70's band and be taken seriously (Rolling Stones touring when Mick & Keith are gone??!), and I'm hoping no one's intending to compare Yes to The Drifters to make that point.
I'm still hesitating before hitting submit, and I hope everyone reads this with the knowledge that I am a huge Yes fan, at least solidly up to Drama anyway (90125 got them on the circular path to chasing another hit, IMO, and making some questionable decisions to achieve that aim, which never happened), who is still melancholy over Squire's passing (Elvis and Bonham were the only others to hit me as hard). And Steve Howe is still my favourite guitarist...
