Yes – Bridgewater Hall, Manchester – Thursday 23rd May 2024

Yes return to Manchester and we’re back too, for the Classic Tales Of Yes tour that’s travelled through Europe and begins the UK run at the smart Manchester venue.

It’s been close to a couple of years since Yes played Manchester with the Close To The Edge 50th Anniversary show. We were there, as we/the team, have been in some form, ATB or otherwise, since 1980 or even before. Almost seems like yesterday yet the constantly evolving line up and a current wave of activity resulting in new material finds the 2024 Yes in pretty rude health. As some would say, the journey continues.

Classic Tales – there’s a clue in the title. A clear hint that we can expect some ‘Tales’ in the form of a toe dipped into the Topographic Oceans and also expectation of some crowd pleasing ‘classic’ Yes is hardly rocket science. However, there’s no Close To The Edge material making the set on this cycle, having formed the basis of the 2022 tour. Room then for a setlist shuffle…

A quick scan of said setlist sees a balance in favour of the early years, ie, the Seventies, where Steve Howe began his tenure with the band and the era and music in which he places his most faith. The Trevor Rabin period is almost naturally bypassed and the 13/14 albums from 1980-2024 represented by the opening two cuts and a nod to their latest Mirror To The Sky album. To be fair, it must be a thankless task to put together a set that meets the criteria for the classics, bearing in mind the songs that didn’t make the final cut. Some naysayers will be sounding off in the forums how there’s no Awaken this time (although Going For The One is well represented) and Relayer is once again notable by it’s absence.

However, there’s more than enough to acknowledge the fifty plus years legacy and the tweaks begin right away as the band enter in darkness as the intro music sees Stravinsky make way for Britten. Ten minutes of Machine Messiah (that along with second set opener, South Side Of The Sky representing the heavier side of Yes) kicks off. There’s also a swing toward the more accessible and red restrained elements with It Will Be A Good Day and Time And A Word – no big prog epics or masterworks, which has Howe declaring that after the “electrifying Drama and a trip up The Ladder” we get a well executed Your Move/All Good People and a brief inclusion of Simon & Garfunkel’s America in the jazzed up, Yessifed format as an amuse bouche workout.

Unusually, given he’s the longest serving current band member and a Yesshow feels odd without it, Howe doesn’t get a solo spot. Instead he sits with an acoustic for the beginning of the sublime Turn Of The Century that brings an emotional close to the first set. It’s a sublime version filled with finesse, each member adding a delicate touch and the highlight of the first half. It has the Manchester crowd on its feet for a deserved ovation.

Having spotlit Howe, over on the other side of the stage, the presence of Billy Sherwood and Jay Schellen might define the current line up as the ‘Sherwood/Schellen era’. Replacing two iconic yet sadly departed members, they keep the Yes machine on the move. Sherwood, as noted previously, has work his socks off to channel the power and grace of Chris Squire, almost constantly on the tips of the toes of his right foot as he eases into the famous basslines.

Bringing the Yesstory all the way to present day, Cut From The Stars is a reminder that Yes is still a creative beast, but the bulk of the second set is taken up with a lengthy, but manageable, medley from the four sides – yes, the LP still rules – or four movements given its classical structure, of Tales From Topographic Oceans. Both finale and centrepiece, it allows for another Howe ‘solo’ spot on acoutsic as he works the Leaves Of Green duet with Jon Davison in the middle of what he calls “a revisitation” to Topographic, “all the bits in one side” – and they do a fine job too to be fair, dropping the needle at the start of Side One and segueing in an out of familiar parts without the unnecessary doodling for which the album is criticised. Some parts are played for the first time in a l-o-n-g time and how wonderfully warming it is to hear sections of The Remembering and anything to do with Ritual is a thrill from the powerful to the pastoral as along with Turn Of The Century, Anderson’s original “We hear a sound and alter our returning, We drift the shadows and course our way on home” lyrics in particular induce a stingy eyed sentiment.

Encores of Roundbaout and Starship Trooper between standing ovations, see Sherwood stepping up to centre stage once Howe has taken a seated break after introducing Wurm and not for the first time, some bass pedals from Geoff Downes fill out the bottom end of the sound. The audience may have been at their respectful best but there’s no doubt that opening the UK jaunt in Manchester – which has Howe acknowledging the ‘hometown’ feel with Jon Anderson being from up the road in Accrington – is a smart move.

They say you can’t choose your family but you can choose your friends and your bands and Yes are always seemingly going to be one of those old, occasionally unreliable but constant companions who’ve been there. You can find a Reddit where someone asks “is it worth seeing Yes live now?” The evidence suggest there are still many, a fact recognised by Steve Howe – not the masses who saw them at QPR and Stoke City FC in 1975 – who still religiously continue to support a band that’s gone through thick and thin and whose music has soundtracked many lives.

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