The Gonzo Daily: CHRIS SQUIRE IN RENO

Tuesday, 5 March 2013

CHRIS SQUIRE IN RENO

One of the all-time great bass players, Chris Squire is a founding member of the rock band Yes, perhaps the defining band of progressive rock. Yes comes to the Silver Legacy, 407 N. Virginia St., on March 9. For tickets or more information, visit www.silverlegacyreno.com

In Reno, you guys are going to be performing the entirety of The Yes Album and Close to the Edge. Why those two albums?

We decided that those two albums would complement each other well and make a good history of Yes from the ‘70s, really.The Yes Album is kind of an exciting album for us because that was like our first album that got us recognized on the international stage and put us in the spotlight. It was also the first album Steve Howe, our guitar player, had joined the band for. So, a bit of a landmark album. And Close to the Edge, which followed on later, was an album that was our first foray into area of doing the extra long form music that then Yes then became well known for, as in doing a whole one side of the album being the “Close to the Edge” song in itself, 20 minutes long. So that was sort of groundbreaking for us as well at the time. So we thought it would be a pretty good potted history of Yes.

For most of the tour you’re also doing the album Going for the One, but not in Reno …

Yeah, I know, but you know these casino guys, they want people gambling. … That’s the bottom line on that, you know? … It is a bummer for me because we wanted to do all three albums everywhere, but you can’t argue with the man.

The trend of bands doing whole albums …

It’s not a new thing. It’s a new thing for us. Usually when we go out on the road, we usually have a new album to promote, and this is one of those very few occasions that we don’t actually have new music at the moment. We’ll be recording some new music later on in the year. But at the moment, we don’t actually have to focus on something new, so this idea came to fruition for us.

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