"Yes" will be touring under a different name

"This one had problems for me from the outset.

First there were the personal ones. I mean, was Yes really that impressive back in 1971? Or was I just an impressionable kid?

Back then we were looking for something different. The Beatles were long gone and the Haight-Ashbury hippies were turning back to their musical roots.

We wanted something new, our own, something bigger, that would turn rock into an art form, something of which we could be proud.

Yes filled the bill. The music was grand in scope. The lyrics were indecipherable. (Were those really "marmots coming out of the sky" in Roundabout?). It may not have been better, but it was certainly different from Crosby, Stills And Nash. But maybe, just maybe, Yes was overblown pretentious rubbish?

There was also the baggage that Yes brought themselves. We had Chris Squire, Steve Howe and Alan White were more than old. They had wanted this year to be Yes's 40th anniversary tour, but vocalist Jon Anderson's health wasn't up to it. They decided, over his protestations, to carry on with it anyway.

They did the unthinkable and hired an unknown Montreal tribute artist, Benoit David, to take his place. Anderson squawked. They wrote him off, nonetheless, and did it without him. Legendary keyboard player Rick Wakeman wasn't up to it, either. So they picked up his son, Oliver. Oh, the humanity!

Last night, however, Squire, Howe and White proved this had nothing to do with betrayal, pretention, sentimentality or even money. These guys had to perform the music they were born to play. There was no plus in waiting for Anderson to heal. The music was too good and so were they.

Why not take up a guy like David who last night proved he could sing the contralto vocals as well as Anderson could in his prime? Why not pick up a kid who looked exactly like his dad? He has the music in his blood.

Howe and Squire are amazing musicians, as good, if not better , than we thought back in 1971. They're simply one of the greatest guitar-bass teams in the history of rock 'n' roll. They proved it time and again last night.

They opened with Siberian Khatru, for Pete's sake, a showcase for Howe's needlepoint guitar and Squire's precision thunder on bass.

They dared to turn it into I've Seen All Good People, deftly pulling off its ragtime break, before heading into Heart Of The Sunrise. By the time they had finished off the opening set with the Close To The Edge suite, the audience was simply dumbfounded. The vocal harmonies were fantastic. There was a White drum solo that made us understand why he was John Lennon's favourite.

Back in 1971, we had nothing to be ashamed of. Last night, Yes stood the test of time."