Yes at Cliffs Pavilion, Southend 30 April 2014

Ah, gigs for old prog bands, the only ones where the queue for the Gents is longer than the queues for the Ladies. Yes hit Southend last night and it’s fair to say the audience were of a certain age, rarely have I seen so many bald heads in one building.

As Yes head towards their 50^th year as a band, the question is can they keep going? The answer judging on last night’s performance is yes (sorry), for now at least.

The gig consisted of complete performances of 3 classic Yes albums – The Yes Album, Close To The Edge and Going For The One. I wasn’t alone in expecting them to play them in chronological order but they started off with CTTE. Helpfully, the background video told us the name of the album and track, in case we didn’t know.

As has been the case for a while, the introductory section of CTTE was played too slow for my liking but that can be forgiven due to its complexity and their age. The rest of the album was fine, “And You And I” can still raise the hairs, especially in the middle instrumental section. “Siberian Khatru” rocked pretty well.

“Going For The One” was next as Howe’s guitar tech (a busy man all night) rolled out the steel guitar. “Turn of the Century” was wonderful and “Awaken” only suffered slightly due to the lack of church organ and choir on the climax. Davidson fumbled the lyrics at one point and, when he went to play the harp section on a keyboard, he seemed to start off with the wrong sound and had to switch quickly. No harm done.

They finished with “The Yes Album” which was pretty much as expected, although there was no extended jam on Wurm and the middle section of Perpetual Change was a bit of a mess (but that must be extremely difficult to play with the two different time signatures). “A Venture” is the one track I’d never heard live before (I don’t believe they’ve played it before this tour) and it was brilliant, with Downes contributing some fine jazz piano at the end.

The encore, as you would expect, was “Roundabout” and then they left a very happy audience.

So what of Davidson? Well, to his credit he had no problems reaching any of the high notes. His voice and mannerisms are similar to Anderson’s and he plays a mean bongo. He got a big cheer at the end so the audience obviously had no problems accepting him.

So a good night overall, the downside? Well, there was a blinding spotlight that was shone into the audience, Howe’s fingers are not as fast as they used to be and he still looks like a mad Professor. Some of Downes’ keyboard sounds need work and his timing was out in places. White continues to be subdued and Chris Squire continues to grow. I for one look forward to the new album.