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“We held audiences in a
dream state
. That was
the magic
of Yes, and it
still works
.”
isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; it’s hard work. I never wanted to
be one of those bands that are famous for minutes; I had a
fear of being a one-hit wonder.”
Fragile
produced one of Yes’s few mainstream hits, the eight-
and-a-half-minute “Roundabout” (edited down to just over
three for AM radio). at song became an FM radio staple and
further spurred the band to stretch not only their creativity,
but their growing audience as well. “When we started touring
America, we did a lot of shows at universities, and they had
FM radio stations,” Anderson said. “We couldn’t believe they
were playing ‘Roundabout,’ ‘Heart of the Sunrise,’ and ‘Starship
Trooper’ [the latter both roughly minutes] all the way
through. I felt we had this door opening up for us to do even
longer pieces of music.”
From this came the roughly -minute “Close to the
Edge,” which comprised all of side one on the album of the
same name. “We held audiences in a dream state,” Anderson
marveled. “ at was the magic of Yes, and it still works. We
perform ‘Awaken’ [from the album
Going for the One
] on this
tour. It is the beacon of what Yes music truly is. It has nothing
to do with any other kind of music; it’s pure Yes music.”
Anderson has had a proli c solo career beyond Yes with
a rich catalog of solo albums as well as collaborations with,
among others, Wakeman, Vangelis, and Jean-Luc Ponty. It is
this creative drive and exploration that sustains him while
most of Yes’s contemporaries and Anderson’s own musical he-
roes have either disbanded or are quitting the road. Anderson
is looking ahead, still wanting to make great music that is
di erent. He has completed a solo album scheduled for release
this year,
,
Hands
, a reference to the musicians and singers
who collaborated on the album. He is also co-creating a chil-
dren’s opera with Arjan Kiel.
“Music sustains everything you do if you’re a true musician,”
Anderson noted. “I love singing. I’m developing ideas for the
next to years. I’m not going to stop.”
A er years, it can be hard to tell who’s in Yes without a
scorecard. Its members, like Michael Corleone in
Godfather
Part III
, think they’re out, only to get pulled back in. But unlike
many splintered bands that held onto grudges and denied
their fans the chance to see them reunite at the Hall of Fame
ceremony (we’re looking at you, Dire Straits), seeing the band’s
alumni performing together was as optimistic as its name.
Anderson has revived his old mantra when asked whether
the two incarnations of Yes will one day reunite: It’ll happen
when it happens. “I’m now getting the feeling I should get
together with the other band and do a Yes festival next year,” he
proposed.
Does he think that could actually happen?
“I’ll call you,” he responded.
Donald Liebenson is a Chicago-based entertainment writer. His work has
appeared in the
Chicago Tribune
,
Chicago Sun-Times
,
Los Angeles Times
, and
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KEVIN NIXON
RAVINIA MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 3, 2018 – MAY 11, 2019
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