Tuesday 25 August 2015

YES SPINOFF - Flashback: Steve Howe and Steve Hackett Supergroup Scores Unlikely Hit

Imagine you're Steve Hackett and it's 1986. You left Genesis seven years earlier since they weren't using nearly enough of your songs, but they've since become one of the biggest bands on the planet and they're making piles and piles ofMONEY, landing hit after hit. If that wasn't enough, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel have become MTV-friendly pop giants and even Mike Rutherford turned his side project Mike and the Mechanics into a shockingly successful act. Meanwhile, you have a devoted cult audience for your solo work, but it simply can't compare to what's happened to everyone else in your old band not named TonyBANKS.

Genesis

Now imagine you're Steve Howe and it's 1986. You left Yes in 1979, and against all odds turned a prog-rock supergroup FEATURING MEMBERS of Emerson Lake and Palmer and King Crimson into a platinum act with Asia, thanks to "Heat of the Moment." But the follow-up album tanked and you bolted, right as Yes manage to reboot themselves without you and land on the charts with "Owner of a Lonely Heart." Now Yes are once again playing arenas, and you're a man without a band.
The stage was set for GTR, a short-lived and highly unstable supergroup featuring a union of prog rock's two Steve H's. It was just about the only time in history such a formula for a band could have plausibly led to mainstreamSUCCESS. One can imagine the discussions at VH1, which started the previous year:  "We sure could use more videos by pasty-faced, wildly untelegenic members of 1970s prog-rock bands pushing the age of 40. We're airing Yes, Genesis, Phil Collins, Mike and the Mechanics and Peter Gabriel around the clock, but if only there was another one. . ."

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