Is Yes really Yes anymore?

SteveG wrote: chopper wrote: The question is when is a band no longer a band? I'm sure there are some others bands knocking around with no original members, does that mean they're not the band? Is a band name just a franchise? An excellent question. For me, generally, a band is still a band when one or two key members are original, especially with one creative member like Ian Anderson. But that falls apart for me, regarding Tull, with the exclusion of Martin Barre recently. So, I don't know.

You've got the guitarist that arrived on the 3rd album, the drummer from the 6th album (and he needs an oxygen mask and a cane from what I've heard), and a bunch of other guys that straggled in a decade or more later. 

I'm not interested in reality.

Basically Yes are a tribute band to 70's/80's Yes. When you stop producing new music you lose your relevancy as a band and then people only pay money to see you because it brings back memories of the music they loved as a youth. In the case of Yes their last imaginative album was Magnification. Fly From Here is a reasonable album but consists largely of cut offs from the Drama album. You know what you're getting from a Yes concert. Nothing much has changed in the last 40 years - it's music off the Yes Album, Fragile and Close To The Edge. People complain about Neil Young concerts but the good thing about them is you don't know what you're going to get from a Neil Young concert. As an adventurous music goer I'd prefer to risk my chances at a Neil Young concert than a Yes concert, but a lot of others prefer the nostalgia thing to anything that takes them out of their comfort zone. Personally if I was Steve Howe I'd do similar to what Martin Barre did. Fold up the band presently called Yes but keep the members of the band intact and change the name of the band to the Steve Howe band. Draw on all his solo albums for material including Bob Dylan influences, Chet Atkins and Folk influences and some of the more obvious Yes material. If he does that I'd gladly pay money to see the band because they're such fabulous musicians.

Edited by iluvmarillion - July 13 2021 at 19:02

^He said "Cut Offs" not "Cuts Off"

siLLy puPPy wrote: I think Yes should become a Tubes cover band. THAT i'd pay for

siLLy puPPy wrote: Sacro_Porgo wrote: siLLy puPPy wrote: I think Yes should become a Tubes cover band. THAT i'd pay for Well hang on, Geoff Downes is in the band, how about rebranding as The Buggles? Perfect, but they could be the Yuggles instead

Years ago, I was rather excited when Yes included Ollie Wakeman on keys....I thought that "passing the baton" in this way conferred promise. 

My apologies, but Nick Mason's 'A Saucerful of Secrets' project offers an excellent insight into this particular conundrum.  They really have captured the early Pink Floyd sound based on the calm guidance of just one original member in a way the band would not have done even if Rick Wright was still around.  Steve Hackett is also doing this with his Genesis repertoire but this has not been the case with Yes.  The nearest thing in recent years that sounded successful, to my ears at least, was the Anderson/Wakeman/Rabin set.