NOTE: All photos are copyright of Dean Keim 2025
The archetypal progressive rock band Yes swung through Huntington, Long Island to play their seminal 1971 album Fragile in its entirety (along with many other classics) at the Paramount, a former vaudeville theater that opened in 1926, rich with history of its own. To many of their serious fans, Yes is not just a progressive rock band but THE prog band,the best and the first band of the genre. They were playing progressive rock way back in 1968, long before many of their contemporaries started fooling with the composition of rock like they did. They did start incorporating many of the keystone traits that ended up defining progressive rock as a whole: long songs with each song often going well over ten minutes in length, the complex compositions with more time changes and genre hopping than the mind can possibly process at one time, the colorfully artistic album covers, and so much more. These classic characteristics ended up outlining the future of this expansive musical category. The band that is widely considered to be the first was King Crimson, and they did end up being a big influence on Yes, but to most of their fans this band is still number one.
Yes has gone through a crazy number of personnel changes, something that has defined their history and changed their sound as each member would leave and, in many cases, come back multiple times through the years. Many devotees of this band have their favorites, and the band’s lineup is of upmost importance. Thusly, it needs to be said there are no founding members left in this roster, even though all three surviving original Yes men are presently recording and touring. This band does have one “classic member,” and that definitive player is guitarist Steve Howe, who entered the band back in 1970 with the crazy diverse ability to play any style of guitar imaginable at the drop of a hat, and an intense multiplicity that propelled the band into the classic period of early 70’s albums including Fragile, forming a period that many of their fans most adore. Howe did leave the band in 1980, but he officially rejoined in 1996, and is now the band leader as the last man standing. Many of the band’s more attentive fans love some of his other bandmates as well, like the former Buggles keyboardist Geoff Downes, who joined the band briefly in 1980 but split off with Howe to form their own art rock supergroup Asia, finally rejoining Yes in 2011. There is also multi-instrumentalist and producer Billy Sherwood who had been collaborating with the band since the late 80’s, but officially joined in 1997 as a backing guitarist and vocalist. He left in 2000 but he came back a few years to play bass after founding bassist Chris Squire died. Singer Jon Davison, who had been in the modern prog outfit Glass Hammer, was suggested as the lead by former Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. Finally, drummer Jay Schellen, previously involved with Asia and multiple other projects with Sherwood, joined a few years back after drummer Alan White died.
The show I saw was a brilliant display of artistry and a great gift to fans who came out to relive a real highpoint of progressive rock history. I was particularly impressed with the art show in the lobby of the venue honoring Yes’ album cover artist Roger Dean. His album covers all but defined the band back in the 70’s, as his paintings of colorful and trippy alien landscapes and incredibly elaborate typography made Yes albums instantaneously identifiable. This was a collaboration that started with the Fragile album and continued through almost every album Steve Howe was involved in from that point on, largely because the two were tight friends. The gallery show featured giant signed and numbered prints of many of Dean’s coolest creations, from classic Yes album covers, to those by Asia and many more, and all of them were apparently for sale. It was a great tribute to an artist that had a huge influence on the success and history of Yes.
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The show itself was also brilliantly colorful, with Dean’s paintings being projected behind the band as they played and some of the super spaced-out sceneries were even animated. The band opened with a track from the album released less than a year after Fragile, an expansive jam called “Siberian Khatru” from the 1972 Close To The Album disc. They then shocked me by playing three consecutive songs from the often derided 1978 album Tormato, and despite some of the hate that disc gets from fans, they did pick the coolest songs from album to play in this show, like the jamming rock epic “Silent Wings of Freedom” with Sherwood really nailing that spiraling bass sound, to the soaring serenade “Onward,” and then the rather silly medieval minstrel feel of “Madrigal.” They followed that with one of the coolest selections I could have ever hoped for, which was the whole second half of the 20-minute-long epic “Gates Of Delirium” from 1974’s Relayer. I do find the first half a little too experimental and improvisational for my tastes (which says a lot as I love the crazy) but this whole section from the midway drum solo expertly jammed out by Jay Schellen, through the moog-drenched slide guitar soloing by Howe, to the vocals perfectly nailed by Jon Davison’s impossibly high falsetto on the ending “Soon” part of the song, was a heavenly hymn . It was ten minutes of pure divine magic that showed how amazing this band could be. They also did an amazing recital of “Wonderous Stores” from 1977’s Going For The One, another magical moment that brought goosebumps to your soul. They did play one “new” song this night, “Circles of Time” from the 2023 album Mirror to the Sky. They finished the first set with a personal fave of mine, the killer jam “Tempus Fugit” from 1980’s Drama album, and considering it had been the first time Howe and Downes recorded together, it was a particularly enchanting moment for any serious Yes fan.
The second set was all about the classic Fragile album, which they apparently performed in its entirety on their 2014 tour but, as I did miss that outing, I was especially interested in how they were going to tackle this massive art rock epic. The album’s definitive opener “Roundabout” was pure magic and done very faithfully to the original. It was all the solos that I was more interested in how they’d handle and this was the first album that all five members had little solo pieces where they composed, and in most cases, played all the instruments, a trend that started on the previous disc The Yes Album which came out less than a year before. In it, Howe played a definitive acoustic guitar solo “The Clap”, boldly solidifying his debut in the band and showing him to be the real wildfire element that could pushed the whole band to be the absolute best musicians they could possibly be. The second track was Rick Wakeman’s harpsichord and organ extravaganza “Cans and Brahms,” an adaptation of the third movement of Symphony No. 4 in E minor by Johannes Brahms. Downes had his stacks of keyboards that almost surround and tower above him as he plays and he covered the whole solo faithfully down to the very note. Anderson’s solo “We Have Heaven” was pure angelic vocal magic and also surprisingly flawless even without Anderson’s distinctive fairy-like high-pitched voice, but Davison and the rest of the singers in the band nailed it. The epic rocker “South Side of the Sky” was probably one of the high points of the night for me and it did seem like it was jammed out a bit more in the middle, but Howe’s guitar genius could not be denied on this one. “Five per Cent for Nothing” was founding drummer Bill Bruford’s jazz-drenched masterpiece of improvisational madness and they once again tackled this tricky little composition with absolute precision. “Long Distance Runaround” is a radio-staple Yes classic with a great rim shot drum beat and memorable keyboard line, along with lyrics that addresses their attitude toward religion and affirming they are a spiritual band and not necessarily a Christian band. The Squire bass jam “The Fish” was perfectly drawn out into all the gorgeously spacey directions you’d wish for. Howe’s acoustic ditty “Mood For A Day” was beautiful executed and pretty much hit every tricky note of the studio original, and yet the magic of seeing and hearing him play these songs in person is an otherworldly pleasure. It was the lengthy album closer of ”Heart Of The Sunrise” that really brought the house down with its heavenly intensity from the mountainous metal-level heavier parts to the serene mellow valleys it was all really perfect.
As an encore they played a surprising cover of The Beatles’ “The Word” which was not a recreation I’d expect from this group, but that groove actually worked very well from this outfit. From the chippy organ blasts to the punky guitar strums, this was another cool illustration of the kind of diversity you should expect at a Yes gig. The final song was the epic “Starship Trooper” from The Yes Album and they somehow improved on the flawless diversity of the original with everything from Howe’s glorious little mid-song acoustic hoedown to that killer ending jam that can’t help but take you away to another world. There were times during the show when I did kind of wish Rick Wakeman was dominating on the keys, or that Jon Anderson was belting out those high notes, or even an edgy Bill Bruford rim shot drum line to take over, but this lineup kept me pleased with the performance of the material the whole way through. They didn’t play any of their 80’s hits either, as Howe was clearly not interested in any of those eras he wasn’t part of, but they did come up with a set that was both surprising and full of the nostalgic fun you’d hope for with a Yes show.
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