YEs

Live at the Apollo

The passing of Chris Squire might have punctured the proliferation of touring Yesses, yet here’s a new combo—the classic pairing of Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman, but with Trevor Rabin instead of Steve Howe, plus ring-ins on bass and drums (though both recruits have strong and long histories as prog outliers). The result is a much rockier Yes, with higher drive and flair, so that it’s no surprise to find the focus on the four Rabin-period Yes albums that began with ‘90125’ and ‘Big Generator’. The bonus is Wakeman’s fluid, funky and entertaining contributions to those songs (Tony Kaye was resident keys through that period). Despite Rabin’s raging performance, however, Squire’s bravado is sorely missed, and Howe’s complexity even more so on true classics such as And You And I and Awaken, leaving this 2017 Manchester set among the lower of many available Yes live highs.