The first time Yes drummer Alan White had to play songs from the 1973 album "Close To The Edge," it was under less than ideal circumstances.
He was replacing Bill Bruford, who had recorded the album, and he had all of three days to learn the songs from that album as well as other material Yes planned for its tour behind the album.
"It was pure insanity," White says in a phone interview. "You wake up quite a lot, all day eating and sleeping Yes music. And I didn't really have any hands-on rehearsal with the band.
"I think we did play together for an hour once, and then the equipment had to leave or something. So for me, it was like jumping into the deep end. All of a sudden I was in front of 10,000 people in Dallas all screaming their heads off and I had to play everything right.
"The first show, actually, I got pretty much everything right, and the band was kind of relieved because everybody was kind of worried about it. And then the second, third and fourth shows, I made a few more mistakes, but by about the fourth or fifth show I was kind of getting everything down."
White has played the songs from "Close To The Edge" countless times since, as he has remained the drummer in Yes for the vast majority of the 40 years that have passed.
On the current tour, he'll once again play that entire concept album — plus two other key albums from the Yes catalog, "The Yes Album" and "Going For The One."
The band — which also includes guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Chris Squire, keyboardist Geoff Downes and singer Jon Davison — arrived at playing the trio of albums with little debate, White says.
"These seem to be pretty easy choices for everybody in the band. These are the three that would go together best. So let's go with this. So it was just a matter of a couple of e-mails and we all decided that would be all right, right there."
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