Gig review: Yes @ Apollo, Manchester (From This Is Lancashire)

Gig review: Yes @ Apollo, Manchester

11:01am Monday 23rd November 2009 in

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CONTROVERSIALLY picked to sing on the tour instead of usual frontman Jon Anderson, Canadian Benoit David had some pretty big shoes to fill on a damp Sunday night.

However, he performed admirably and was well received by the audience.

He certainly has the voice for the band, but the only drawback is that he hasn’t got the charisma or mystique that Anderson has and therefore most of the announcements came from the iconic Chris Squire and Steve Howe.

From the haunting intro of Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird Suite’, the legendary prog rock veterans launched into ‘Siberian Khatru’ and the live staple ‘All Good People / Your Move’.

Following that, they performed the first of two tracks from the ‘Drama’ album which was the 1980 album which had The Buggles in the band’s line-up.

Then a couple of surprises.

The sublime ‘Onward’ fro the album ‘Tormato’ proved that Mr David could indeed single almost exactly like Jon Anderson; and then a rarely performed song from their second album called ‘Astral Traveller’.

Not only have I never heard this song done before, it also contained a blistering drum solo from Alan White (and it is rare indeed to have the drum solo so early in the set).

There were of course some songs that just had to be played, such as ‘Yours Is No Disgrace’, ‘And You And I’, ‘Roundabout’ and the encore ‘Starship Trooper’.

We also had the obligatory guitar solos from the magic fingers of Steve Howe.

Speaking of ‘magic fingers’, new keyboard player Oliver Wakeman was a revelation. A faultless performance that his father would have been proud of.

Oliver has now followed father Rick into two bands, Yes and The Strawbs.

“I’ve done two 40th Anniversary celebrations this year,” he told me later.

“One with The Strawbs and now Yes – and I’m only 37!”

The whole show, which had no interval, meaning that they were on stage for over two and a quarter hours, was dominated by the bass guitar of Chris Squire.

Known as ‘The Keeper Of The Flame’ as he is the only person to appear on every Yes album; his bass playing and high backing vocals really stood out, and when he played the bass pedals, you could have been forgiven for thinking that a Lancaster bomber was flying over.

An evening of nostalgic prog-rock by one of the bands who invented the genre, what more could you ask?

Well one thing, Benoit David is a good singer, he has Jon Anderson to a tee, but in the fan’s eyes he will never replace him.

But he’ll do until they see sense and bring Jon back.