Tuesday 26 June 2012

LINK: Jon Anderson Live at the Napa Valley Opera House


“Everywhere I go, all over the world, people sing this song. I hear it in Brazil, Argentina, Japan. They don’t know what the words mean, but they sing it. I don’t know what the words mean, either.” Everybody laughs. He plays Your Move/All Good People.


Jon Anderson is a consummate performer. He was perfectly at ease in front an audience, which is only to be expected, but not all artists of his renown are like that. When he talked, he was authentic and direct. He has a great spirit which is a joy to experience, and he put a lot of humor into his performance. The audience was highly appreciative, even to the point of giving him a standing ovation just for coming on stage and after every song. Part of this may have had to do with the fact that this was in Napa, the very heart of California wine country, where half the people are half-baked, a good number are fully baked, and a noticeable few are clearly overdone. Jon played guitar, a little electric piano, and an instrument he described as being based on a Chinese stringed instrument. It looked a lot like a Turkish sasz to me, and sounded very similar. He told a lot of stories about “the band,” and about meeting some individuals in the early years like Joe Cocker and Robert Plant, before all became stars.


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