Yes Coming to Play in Cork Was A Dream Come True

Picked Up This Book At The Concert, It Details the History of the Close To the Edge Album, a Nice Souvenir

I am beyond overjoyed to say I got to see Yes perform in the Opera House yesterday. I am a massive prog rock fan, and to see one of the giants of the genre play was such a wonderful experience. They played their classic album Close to the Edge in full it being the fiftieth anniversary of that album. I knew I was going to do a blog post on the subject, I had two ideas, one blog post idea was to write a blog post about how for my as an autistic person going to see live music is such a wonderful experience, and the other blog post idea was to just talk about the gig regardless of neurotype. After all, not every thing is about autism, only the vast majority of things are. So, I decided to combine these two blog post ideas into one, so it’ll be like Union (Yes fans will understand that reference!)

To address a brief elephant in the room, there has been some talk online about how this line up isn’t truly Yes, because Steve Howe is the only member present from the classic period. To which I say, Yes are not Rush! Yes have always had an ever changing line up, to say this is not Yes would be like saying Doctor Who hasn’t been Doctor Who since William Hartnell left in 1966!

I was singing along not just to the vocal parts for a lot of the songs throughout the gig, but also singing along to the guitar, bass and keyboard parts. There’s something magical about instrumental parts that make you want to sing along. Jay Shellen’s drumming was so fantastic I could not help but air drum. Singer Jon Davidson I was skeptical of when I first heard him several months ago, not because he’s in any way a bad singer but because replacing Jon Anderson is a massive challenge. But as I listened to him more and more in the weeks coming up to the gig, he won me over, and on the night his fantastic vocal range as well as showmanship was just magnificent. Billy Sherwood’s versatile bass playing was top notch, funky grooves or a furious almost metal style he could do it all. Geoff Downes with his massive array of keyboards provided everything from synth to organ to Mellotron.

Everyone of these players is worthy of the Yes name, despite being relative newcomers, but there was still something special about seeing Steve Howe playing guitar on these songs. I was hearing and seeing the man who played those awesome guitar parts fifty years ago, the man who was right there at the time, helping to bring Close to the Edge to life. And he is one of my favourite guitarists. No style fazes him. He’ll happily switch from hard rock, to jazz, to folk, to the point where all of the guitars he needed were taking up a lot room on the stage, rivalling Geoff Downes for space requirement! He can do lightning fast runs with the best of them, but his volume swell technique is just heavenly to hear. A real highlight was seeing him play acoustic guitar and lap steel, as well as a Portuguese Guitar. And on Siberian Khatru he rivalled Jon Davidson for showmanship.

The highlight of the gig was when they played Close to the Edge in full. The first track, Close to the Edge, is just over 18 minutes long, And You And I is just over 10 minutes, and Siberian Khatru is just over 9 minutes long. Truly this was prog heaven!I got really emotional during the song Close to the Edge. There’s an extended quiet peaceful part where I could feel tears starting to form in my eyes, but later in the song it goes almost metal and I started headbanging. How many songs can bring you close to tears and then into headbanging, the song takes you on such a wild journey emotionally and musically.

This was my first time going to a concert where an album was played in full, and it’s an experience I will treasure. But there was plenty more to smile about. They played one of my absolute favourite Yes songs, Heart of the Sunrise, it’s simply a beautiful song, it means a lot to me partly because during a period when I was listening to it a lot, I saw one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen. Then the show ended, and the whole fake “the show’s over now” thing started, and the roadie placed Steve Howe’s Variax guitar on stage. To my absolute joy I realised this could only mean they were about to play Roundabout, one of my absolute favourites! Then they played Starship Trooper, so their encore was close to twenty minutes long!

This was the first concert I went to after I had embraced the fact that I am autistic. And I could enjoy the concert fully, not ashamed of my hand flapping or other mannerisms that people might not understand. But to be honest, live music gigs have always given me an opportunity to experience my true emotions, my true self. Head banging looks pretty strange in any context other than a rock concert, but I could do it, I could do a lot of strange movements I would be judged for in any other situation. And during concerts, when I was so ashamed of my autism I was hiding it from even myself, I could just let go, and be me, for a short time at least.

Because of Covid travel restrictions, my travel anxiety has gotten out of control, because I’m no longer used to travelling. I wouldn’t have been able to make the journey to Dublin, so I am beyond greatful to Yes for making the decision to come to Cork, and put on one of the best concerts I have ever seen, I’m sure I’ll still be talking about it thirty years from now.

A month ago, Alan White, who has been Yes’s drummer since the seventies, sadly passed away. Due to ongoing health problems Alan White could no longer play an entire concert, so Jay Shellen would play a lot of the songs while Alan White would play those songs that he was able to. I am quite saddened that I’ll never get to see Alan White play. RIP Alan, and thank you for creating such wonderful music.