Vol. 7, No. 9 - September 2000
Rick Wakeman - Sept News
Photos from "Masterworks" Tour
More Masterworks Photos from Concord, Calif.
Yes fans at the Concord show

Roger Dean Website

Roger Dean has revamped his website - www.rogerdean.co.uk - and if Yes isn't offering logo and album cover T-Shirts, Roger *is*!!!!!!

Steve Howe on TNN

According to the print TV Guide Steve Howe will be one of the people interviewed on the TNN tribute to Chet Atkins. This will be the night of Tuesday, Sept 5th.

Alan White @ Tribe Jam

Hi everyone, Here's what happened with Tribe Jam. I should have pics from the event on our website soon.

Tribe Jam 2000 - Featuring Alan White of YES 8/21/2000 @ Nautica in the Flats, Cleveland Ohio

Tribe Jam is an annual event hosted by Mark Langston, former pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, now retired. All the profits from the event go to Cleveland Indians' charities. Last year they raised $100,000.

This year Alan White accepted the invitation to participate along with Eddie Money, Cleveland favorite, Michael Stanley, and the Indians band led by Mark Langston on guitar, and featuring Dave Burba on vocals and Omar Visquel on drums.

8/20 Sunday afternoon, 4:00pm:
Rehearsal for TJ2000 takes place at the Odeon. Alan White arrives with Mark Langston and sets about inspecting the drum set provided for him. After a bit of careful tweaking everything seemed to suit him just fine.

Melissa (Envision lead singer)and myself (Keyboards) join Alan on stage, along with Cleveland area guitarist, Danny Powers and bassist Mark Matthews. Were we nervous? Well, yeah! But Alan put us all at ease with his easy manner and sense of humor. Songs rehearsed included: Cinema, Owner of a Lonely Heart, City of Love, and Roundabout. After working out some of the endings and a few vocal parts, we were done!

Alan then proceeded to rehearse with Eddie Money's band Whom he was sitting in with on Monday. I confess, I didn't pay alot of attention to this because I was having a great conversation with Mark L. about pitching for the Indians!

Later that night we converged on a bar in the Flats called "Jimmy's", where they were hosting a birthday party for Mark L. You couldn't move very far without bumping into a major league baseball player. I have to admit, it was a happening place to be! Alan and his wife Gigi were there too, and we all had a great time.

8/21 Monday afternoon, 4:00pm:
Soundcheck for Alan's band consists of running through the set once. We all gave careful instructions to the sound techs about monitor mixes, which is vital to a good performance!

Monday evening, 7:00pm:
Melissa and I arrive backstage at the Nautica. Again, there are ballplayers everywhere, and I got my Dad's ball cap signed by loads of baseball stars. Retired Clevland Browns quarterback, Bernie Kosar was there too. He really took us by surprise when he took off his Superbowl ring and gave it to Melissa to try on! Of coarse he wanted it back. Darn.

With a near capacity crowd of about 4,000, the evening opened with the Cleveland Indians band performing Van Halen's "Ice Cream Man". Indians pitcher, Dave Burba was dressed up as the Ice Cream man, right down to the pinstriped jacket.

After a few tunes from Micheal Stanley, it was time for our set with Alan. We opened with Cinema and proceeded into Owner of a Lonely Heart, which featured a short solo by Alan. Somewhere along the way, we picked up an extra guitarist or two, a few extra singers and a guy on congas! I noticed a steady decline in the quality of our monitor mixes. Next up was City of Love. For this one, Alan invited Indians short stop, Omar Visquel to join in on drums. Mark Langston also jumped in on guitar. By this time everything was pretty crazy, and the monitor mix we had at soundcheck was pretty well shot!

Then came Roundabout. Mark Langston got all the ballplayers on stage to join in the festivities. Melissa was dispensing tambourines, cowbells, cabasas, etc. There must have been 25 or 30 people on stage jamming, singing, hitting things and just having a good time.

All this went over very well with the crowd. I'll admit that watching a bunch of ballplayers jamming to Roundabout was indeed entertaining! I wonder if they would feel the same way about us trying to turn a double play, or hit a home run, or hit anything off a major league pitcher!

After this, Alan played drums with Eddie Money's band. Again, I didn't really pay attention to this, as Melissa and I were backstage enjoying all the freebies they put out for the entertainers : ))

After the show was over, Indians pitcher, Charlie Nagy invited us all to his bar & grille in Rocky River for food and drinks on him. When we arrive, I'm surprised to see him behind the bar, serving people, just like a regular guy! Alan was there with Gigi, and he patiently signed autographs and posed for pictures for all who wanted.

--Matt Riddle ENVISION a Classic YES Tribute
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/MattRiddle

House of Yes CDs

Just read on YesWorld that House Of Yes will be released as an album (2CDs) on September 12. Good News!

However, I already have the imix cd, so I have all the songs that will be on the HOY album, and in the same order!! . Doesn't matter, I'll purchase it anyway.

I realised that counting OYE, The Ladder, and House Of Yes, for the very first time Yes will be releasing three albums in a row with the same line-up.

Fragile News

Fragile (The UK Yes Tribute Band) have released their debut CD "Live at the Half Moon". You can find details on our site www.yestribute.com and some MP3s from the CD if you want to hear what the band sounds like! Cheers, Simon Fragile - The UK's Yes Tribute Band http://www.yestribute.com/

Pre-SuperBowl Show

I know it's a little early to start thinking about this, but I just read the news at Yesworld that Jon Anderson & Alan White will be performing here in Clearwater again in January 2001. It's a weekend long benefit show for the Angelus foundation and it includes quite a few great acts including the Charlie Daniels Band, Marshall Tucker Band, Ken Hensley of Uriah Heep fame, Asleep at the Wheel, Molly Hatchet, and a host of others. Here's the website:

http://www.theangelus.com/charlie.html

I was at the 1999 show and had a blast! This show looks like it will be even better. It's the weekend before the Super Bowl (Bucs vs. Jets?). I highly recommend it if anyone is going to be in the area around that time.

Yes on VH1

This comes directly from Yesworld: Now YES is labeled as "Hard Rock Artist" (!!!). Let's see what others are on the 100 list. And let's see which song or songs they will play on the show (I bet Owner or Rhythm of Love):

"Beginning November 13th, VH1 will countdown the "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" as chosen by a panel of music journalists, critics, and musicians, and Yes is on the list. The show will air for an hour each night for 5 consecutive nights. Check local listings for more details."

New Roger Dean Cover

If you would like to see the new Roger Dean cover for the upcoming Asia album AURA (featuring Steve Howe): http://www.asiaworld.org/Albums/aura5.html or go to Asiaworld.org and click on the link in the upper left corner.

Enhanced Yessite

For a delightful trip back into 70's era YES - complete with rare letters art and photos -check out my enhanced YES pages: http://www.niia.net/~jdminc/yes2.html

Steve Howe Online Fan Club

I would like to invite all Steve Howe fans to check out a club called Turbulence Steve Howe Fans located at http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/turbulencestevehowefans

More Yes MP3s

I've just updated my MP3 site at http://yclochec.free.fr so just go see the novelties. In case you forgot to download some files of the previous version, I have it all saved to HD and can make CDR copies.

Next update around November 15th. Will include the first show of the ABWH tour and the first show of the 90125 tour. And more....

Steve Howe interview in 'The New Yorker'

I don't think anyone has mentioned that Steve Howe was interviewed in 'The New Yorker' a couple of issues back about his association with a young Russell Crowe, rock reviewer and the subject of the new movie "Almost Famous". Between this interview and the sunny review of Wakeman's "Six Wives of Henry the Eighth" in Time about a million years ago, it's been a long time since Yesmen have gotten much exposure in the mainstream press.

House of Yes Reviewed

House of Yes, the CD, not the DVD, is reviewed in the new issue of Music Street Journal. Stop on by and check it out at www.50megs.com/msj

Yesshows: Solo vs. Band

I'm compiling an enthusiasts' magazine feature beased around Yes supporters' opinions on shows by the band versus solo gigs by Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Bill Bruford's Earthworks, Patrick Moraz, etc. 'Southsiders' (+ friends) are invited to email "quotable comments" to me at gigs@progress.freeserve.co.uk

Hopefully the current UK tour by Steve and his coming U.S. tour (+ imminent UK shows by Rick) will motivate plenty of Southsideers to contemplate differences between band shows and solo gigs :)

Resurrecting the Dead

This morning I witnesses ENVISION playing their YES-tribute material live at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 5th anniversary "Rock Around the Clock" celebration . Needless to say, they were fantastic. Their setlist included:

CINEMA
OWNER OF A LONELY HEART
YOURS IS NO DISGRACE
AMERICA
I'VE SEEN ALL GOOD PEOPLE
MEDLEY: PERPETUAL CHANGE/SOON/ROUNDABOUT
STARSHIP TROOPER

They rocked and when I closed my eyes. the only clue that it wasn't YES is Melissa's Akron accent. Just kidding, I mean non-British accent. [snip]

They played extremely well and did justice to YES with some of their personal touches thrown in and Melissa ended by commenting "Maybe soon we will get to see and hear YES playing right here!"

One can only hope.....

It was great to see them playing their fingers off on the concert stage within the lobby of the RRHOF and people standing on every floor and escalator and landing just watching and rocking with them. This was great publicity for YES and anyone there who thinks the awesome machine that originated these songs and has been playing them and dozens of other masterpieces doesn't belong there.......well, they are sadly misguided.

See ENVISION and HEAR them if you have ANY chance at all. It's the next best thing to seeing YES and hey, if Steve needs to be replaced or supplemented at some point, you couldn't do much better than John Kastelic. Matt Riddle is also an awesome talent and if ever one of YES' keyboardists decides not to travel, or to go to jail, or whatever, just call Matt.

More controversy.......but I STILL didn't get SOUTH SIDE OF THE SKY live!!! Just kidding.....the set was great.

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