Me, I was sixth row center, thanks to a friend’s diligence at scoring advance tickets. It was great. I felt like a teenager again. Oh sure, I left the chocolate mescaline home this time, and since I had a three-hour drive home afterward, I opted not to spark the doob I’d brought with me (screws up my night vision too much) and only sucked down a couple glasses of wine. (Merlot. Watery at that. In a plastic cup. For five bucks. Next time, I’ll smuggle in a mini-bottle of White Zin.) And saying I “felt” like a teenager is slightly misleading. In my mind I definitely flashed back to fond memories of my bygone, carefree years. But it’s hard to feel like a teen when you’re surrounded by several thousand tubby, balding (or mulleted) guys all shouting out favorite song titles and/or songs’ subtitles (Yes songs have lots of “passages” that get awarded their own titles), playing air guitar, air bass or, for those standing in front of Wakeman, air piano, and in general acting like they are trying to feel like teenagers again. (Ask yourself: When you are 50, will you mosh? Body surf? Get your ‘nads pierced? Discuss.)

Where were the hot chicks, you ask? Kurt Bloch had told me that the ratio of gals to guys at Yes concerts is probably something like 1:200, and he’s right; from what I could see, every female at the concert was attached to (and occasionally shrinking away from) one of the dorks mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Maybe they were the dorks’ sisters, I dunno. I know my wife wasn’t interested in seeing Yes. I remember there being lots of hot chicks at Yes gigs in the ‘70s, but then, that was the ‘70s, when any big touring band, especially one from England, was a big deal. Go rent Almost Famous if you want further elaboration on similar matters. This isn’t a band that attracts hot chicks anymore, and I’m sorry to tell Chris Squire this, but wearing super-tight black stretchy pants that prominently display your dressed-to-the-left “package” isn’t, I don’t think, going to change things at this late stage in the game. Unless he’s trying to hook up with one of those husky-voiced, aging bimbos you inevitably find DJing for the local classic-rock station and who get backstage passes for every arena show that comes to town.

Speaking of bassist Squire, my pal and I concluded that with his semi-shag blonde ‘do he looks eerily like a pre-conviction Martha Stewart these days. To his left, cordoned off by banks of keyboards, was Rick Wakeman, who appears to have ditched his traditional diet of cheeseburgers ‘n’ ale for healthier fare, as despite having a certain jowly-ness to him, he’s lost a lot of weight. His yellow-blonde hair is long again, too, and he always seems to have an “intense” look in his eyes, which, combined with the jowls and a beaky nose, makes him look like a young Walter Cronkite. Behind the drum kit perched Alan White: mustachio’d, balding, Jimmy Buffett’s younger brother. On the far left was guitarist Steve Howe, whose somewhat gaunt, bony facial structure 30 years ago was a tip-off: now, this bald/grey-haired, bespectacled, impossibly skinny fretboard maestro is that doddery college professor you still speak fondly of, or the old country doctor who delivered your mom and old Bessy’s calf, or a heart patient who’s been given three months to live. (Fun thought: if they ever film a Yes docudrama, get Billy Bob Thornton to play the Howe part.) Stage center was, of course, vocalist Jon Anderson, still a boffin, still fond of quirky little hand gestures (as a kid he must have either wanted to be a cowboy or a symphony conductor), still offering audiences self-conscious—but I have no doubt, totally sincere—little song intros and humble nods of appreciation at the applause. He had a shag like Squire, only shorter, and he sports a kind of grayish Van Dyke on his face. I kept thinking of Bono, minus Bono’s stupid blue glasses, crossed with Robin Williams.

Stewart, Cronkite, Buffett, Thornton & Bono: Now that would make a goddamn supergroup.

Just the same, and all kidding aside (I’m not really trying to be sarcastic, just poking gentle fun here—everyone’s gonna get old, grey and bald some day), this was, to paraphrase myself, a kickass concert. Two and a half hours, two sets plus a 15-minute intermission to allow the old-timers to go pee and buy watery cups of Merlot.

It kicked off with a furiously rocking “Going For The One,” Howe’s twangabilly guitar intro catching the crowd off guard. The band immediately segued into “Sweet Dreams,” also an unexpected treat, hailing all the way from 1970 and second album Time And A Word. From there, Yes moved into an intriguing segment that found the timeless “I’ve Seen All Good People” (from 1970’s The Yes Album and interpolating, of course, the chess-centric “Your Move” passage) connecting with “Mind Drive,” a somewhat obscure group composition from the studio half of the 1997 double-disc Keys To Ascension, Vol. 2, and here it was obvious that one thing helping to keep the music fresh for the band is mixing up the old and the new, time-slipping in and out of Yes-dom without regard to any real or imagined baggage that may have accumulated over the years. (Translation: It wasn’t sterile or pompous, but organic and, at times, downright emotional—like a well-wrought, evenly-tempered classical concert, in fact.) Somewhere in the middle of it all, Howe and Wakeman engaged in a furious swapping-riffs cutting contest, one mock-glaring across the stage at the other and pretending to try to upstage each other. It was intense and it was fun, and it brought the house down. I think even Yes was surprised at the standing ovation that erupted before the song had finished. The first set ended with a rousing “Yours Is No Disgrace,” also from TYA, and one of the group’s more full-on rockers that gave Howe plenty of room to kick out the jams, Howe-style, and to allay any fears that he might be so frail as to require roadies to assist him in leaving the stage for the break.

The second set featured a six-song acoustic portion with Wakeman’s baby grand toted out for the occasion and White coming down from his riser to tap dutifully on a tiny kit while Howe, Anderson and Squire perched on stools and strummed guitars. Perennial workhorse “Roundabout” was thoroughly overhauled as a jaunty little jazz ditty, while new tune “Show Me” provided Anderson an opportunity to warble some genuinely moving lyrics (about children and the human condition) without getting too hippie-nonsequitur or new age on the crowd’s ass. Howe performed a country/bluegrass-flavored guitar instrumental while the road crew removed the piano, then the band reverted to electric Yes-guise for the remainder of the show. Soon enough, the arena was knee-deep in the half-hour prog symphony “Ritual (Nous Sommes Du Soleil),” which originally took up the entire side four of 1973’s Tales From Topographic Oceans and now took up an entire cranium—mine. It kinda hurt, because every five seconds, there was a new rhythmic avenue down which the band scooted or an instrumental flourish that zinged forth unexpectedly only to give way to another player’s embellishment. But it was a good hurt, and anyway, when you go to a Yes concert, you expect to be pummeled occasionally in order to be properly dazzled.

An encore of the Beatles’ “Every Little Thing” (covered by Yes on Yes—35 years ago, in fact) and “Soon,” a melodic, gorgeous swoon of a ballad from 1974’s Relayer (originally the coda of “Gates Of Delirium,” it became an unexpected FM hit in ’75 when Atlantic Records extracted it and released it as a single), served to send everyone home humming contentedly. And that, as Walter Cronkite might’ve said had he attended the show, is the way it was. Yes, sir.

FYI: http://forgottenyesterdays.com and http://www.trismccall.net/notes_from_the_front_yessay.html