"Obviously, I can’t say ‘I think we were pretentious’ …”
No, Steve Howe would not say that of his younger self and the other expeditionaries who midwifed the rock-cyborg known as Prog into being. Others, though — they’ve said it.
“We got accused of all sorts of things,” the guitarist says from a hotel in Holyoke, Mass. “Playing too many notes, being indulgent — and we just went, ‘Oh, get lost, get a life.’ They just hoped we’d go away.”
Instead, 44 years and half as many incarnations later, Yes remains. And Yes remains Yes, rolling out its Three Album Tour, playing Close to The Edge, Going for the One and The Yes Album, a ’70s-style concept concert rather than an ’80s hits-o-rama.
“We’d done (a hits tour),” Howe says. “It didn’t have any shape. It’s what all bands do, and it’s the easy option: Pick a bunch of songs and put them together. I thought of (this concept) and it got tweaked and debated forever — I wanted to do it chronologically, others didn’t, so we got over that hurdle.
“We’d done this once before, when we did (Tales from) Topographic Oceans, but that was in 1973. So 40 years later, it’s not a bad idea to do it again. And I think it’s a greatly improved concept (over) just ‘doing songs.’ We’ve gone back to an idea we only did then, which was to play Close to the Edge and Tales from Topographic Oceans in the same night, with the first-ever Roger Dean stage.”
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ReplyDeleteJon,
ReplyDeleteI thought you may be interested in the video from Fox News about the bipartisan effort of getting YES into R&R Hall of Fame. I do not know the idiot who is sitting to the right of Clint Black.
Interest stuff although you get tired of people like the moron mentioned above saying Prog killed Rock and Roll.
Here is the website:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2602508915001/bipartisan-effort-to-get-yes-in-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame/?intcmp=HPBucket&playlist_id=929831930001