55. Yes

Royal Albert Hall

8 May 2014

The classic album tour. The musical equivalent of raiding your own attic for valuables, dust off their greatest hits, play them in order, and pretend it’s all about artistic integrity, not topping up the pension pot. Unless you’re the Rolling Stones, of course, whose farewell tours have now lasted longer than the Napoleonic Wars.

Tonight’s nostalgia-soaked affair features the ever-rotating lineup of Yes, or, to be more accurate, the Steve Howe Experience (now with added Chris Squire). Officially branded as Yes™, which feels slightly misleading when the only two original members still present look like they should be on the cover of Saga magazine rather than a tour programme. But hey, it’s prog rock, who needs continuity when you’ve got ten-minute keyboard solos and songs about cosmic whales?

The premise is high concept: The Yes Album, Close to the Edge, and Going for the One, played in full. A bold move, especially considering two of those albums were released during Nixon’s presidency. My mate and I are both in our mid-40s, so whilst not exactly spring chickens, we were still somehow the youngest people in the room by decades. The demographic? Well, there was a faint, inescapable whiff hanging over the venue like a spectral reminder of advancing years.

Mingled in this heady brew was an inescapable aroma of boiled sweets and something slightly more medical. I’m not saying they should’ve offered prostate checks at the merch stand, but they likely missed a branding opportunity.

As for the band? Steve Howe shuffled on looking like he’d been cryogenically defrosted backstage and handed a guitar before he’d fully reanimated. Still, credit where it’s due, he can still play. That iconic, meandering, utterly baffling fretwork was all present and correct. It’s just now delivered with the energy of a man who’s left his oven on and doesn’t quite remember where he lives.

The set was a lush, noodling journey through three albums of beautifully incomprehensible prog. Every song was an odyssey. Every solo, an existential challenge. There were moments, yes, genuine moments, where if you squinted through the fug of time, age, and the dry-ice machine working overtime to hide the band’s hips, you could still hear the echoes of greatness.

But mostly it felt like watching a beloved VHS on a fuzzy CRT screen, comforting, grainy, and slightly too long. It wasn’t transcendental, it wasn’t revolutionary, but for those few hours, it was enough to be reminded of what once was.