Guitar wizard Steve Howe is a Yes man.
Howe even recently gave up his slot in the seven-year-old reunion of 1980s prog rock hit making group Asia to concentrate on the similarly reunited Yes, the classic band with which he sold nearly 10 million albums and had timeless hits such as “Roundabout” and “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”
That will be the playlist when Yes stops April 7 at Sands Bethlehem Event Center.
In a recent telephone call from the road, Howe talked about the choice to perform entire albums, his work in Yes all these years, and the band’s future.
Here’s a transcript of the call:
STEVE HOWE: “Hi, John”
LEHIGH VALLEY MUSIC: How are you?
“Fine, thanks.”
Tell me about the decision to play to have Yes perform three albums -- 1971’s “The Yes Album,” 1972’s “Close to the Edge” and 1977’s “Going for the One” – in their entirely?
Steve Howe with Yes at Musikfest
“Well, basically, over the years we got back together 2008 and worked with various people and various ideas of what the set was. And along the way, I said, ‘Why don’t we do some albums, you know?’ ‘Cause we didn’t do that since ‘Tales from Topographic Ocean’ in ’73 – did we ever play a complete album on stage, and that’s a thing we left, then, for 30 years or so. Or is it 40?! No, it can’t be. Yes, it is.
“So, anyway, I was the guy who said, ‘Why not do albums?’ So, eventually, the idea to do three albums very much consolidated the idea. Because that’s a complete show, as opposed to the one or two albums, which means you’re going to play an album, but there’s other things, other ingredients. This is a complete onslaught, if you like. All three albums. So I had a suspicion that people would like that, because Yes had not done it in recent memory. So that was the choice, really – let’s try it and see.
YES AT GONZO
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