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Venue: Wembley Arena, London Date: 16th June 2004
Setlist - Firebird Suite Intro; Going For The One; Sweet Dreams; I've Seen All Good People; Mind Drive (Part 1); South Side Of The Sky; Turn Of The Century; Footprints (excerpt); Mind Drive (Part 2); Yours Is No
Disgrace;
15 min Intermission
The Meeting (acoustic); Long Distant Runaround (acoustic); Wondrous Stories (acoustic); Time Is Time (acoustic); Roundabout (Chicago Blues acoustic); Show Me (acoustic); Owner Of A Lonely Heart (acoustic); 2nd
Initial (Steve Howe solo); Rhythm Of Love; And You And I; Ritual;
Encore: Starship Trooper
Ahhh...those familiar strains of Stravinsky's Firebird suite herald the arrival of my favorite prog band to the stage. Though Wembley Arena is not exactly my favorite venue in terms of acoustics, after a slightly
shaky start the sound engineers soon got the levels sorted.
Good to hear Going For The One live for the first time, and a good fist they made of it too. I had read that Jon was having trouble remembering some of the vocals during some of the earlier gigs (and indeed had
a teleprompter in front of him to read the lyrics), but he seemed to manage fine to me. It's one of those tracks that can fall apart and sound a bit of a mess if not properly rehearsed, but they performed it
very well indeed.
Sweet Dreams is another song not played live for a very long time, and it was nice to hear one of the bands older songs. Jon handled the vocals superbly, and despite some comments on the band's website from prior gigs I did not find it radically different from the original, save for a guitar and keyboard solo near the end from Messr's Howe and Wakeman respectively.
Mind Drive was probably the most anticipated song of the evening, never having being played live on previous tours. But for me the bass/drum staccato intro was just a little too...gentle.
It lacked power, it should have had a harsh, stabbing effect. Once the song got going it was pretty good, but the decision to split it in two is a strange one. Mind you, when one of the songs in between is the tour-de-force that is South Side Of The Sky, you tend to forget that little disappointment. This proved to be something of a show stopper on the last tour, and tonight's performance has the same high standards. The keyboard/guitar duel between Howe and Wakeman is incredible, and these two really seem to get a kick out of trying to outdo each other - never have I seen Steve Howe so animated.
This was followed by one of my all time faves, Turn Of The Century, a song of incredible poetic beauty, and this rendition was note perfect - Steve hit every cue, Jon's vocals soared, and it actually brought a lump
to my throat.
After the conclusion of Mind Drive, a rousing version of Yours Is No Disgrace followed - the longer, extended version that we are familiar with from the Yessongs album with some incredible guitar work from Steve.
A short interval (15 minutes) and we were back with the acoustic set. This was something of a revelation for me, and something that I think they should do at every gig.
With all of the band at the front of the stage the atmosphere was very relaxed and the band were in a very jovial mood (Loved Rick pretending to fall asleep at his piano at Chris Squires somewhat long winded intro to Roundabout). The stripped down format seemed to breathe new life into tracks like Wondrous Stories, Time Is Time and Owner Of A Lonely Heart. I found that I had no qualms about the blues/shuffle version of Roundabout, despite what others may think. I personally have no problem with experimentation at all - shake it up, I say!
Next up is Rhythm Of Love, and a surprisingly energetic performance from Steve on this one, considering it is Rabin's tune.
Much to the audience's delight, Jon left the stage to go walkabout amongst the crowd, and it became something of a religious experience, with everyone attempting to lay hands on Jon.
A majestic, powerful and emotional version of And You and I followed, with the audience cheering even before the song had ended.
For the final song, we were treated to Ritual.
Now I like really like Ritual, but as a closing track I don't think it works as it's just too long, especially with the obligatory extended drum and bass solo's. Interestingly, when this tour kicked off they were playing Every Little Thing as a closing track and Soon as an encore. I assume these were dropped due to unfavorable fan response, but I think they need to look at the set list in closer detail. They either seem to fall back on the old standard crowd pleasers from the 70's, or throw newer and less often played material into the set in an attempt to please requests from the fans but a happy medium should be sought. However, I applaud them for trying to change things round on this tour, and I think the acoustic set is a great idea.
Finally, a mention for the stage design - not quite the "bouncy castles" I was led to believe. The inflatables looked fine when they were lit correctly, but you could see the paint starting to flake
off some of them when the lighting was a little harsh. But Alan White's "Robo-Drums" were a complete waste of
time. They looked cumbersome and unwieldy, and sort of lurched forward from the
drum kit and back again a couple of times during Ritual - and the beaters were obviously not even touching the drumheads. A shame that so much time and money was spent on something so unspectacular.
But - the band played superbly, the crowd stood after every song, we got new songs, old songs, a decent stage design and the classic line up back again.
That was more than enough for me.
John Morley 17/06/04
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