NEWS
3/10/11 6:00pm
By Heather Olson
There aren't too many bands still around that can claim they have affected generations with their live performances. Seminal progressive rock group Yes is among the longest-lived bands in the history of popular music. I have a personal connection to the band's staying power: In 1976, when my mom was 16, she saw Yes play in Fresno, CA for a packed house. I saw the same band (with some alterations to the original line-up) last spring at the House of Blues here in Houston. While the average age of the crowd has certainly increased, there was no mistaking the same energy and devotion of the Yes fans that had left my mom's ears ringing for three days after the Fresno performance that she is still complaining about 30 years later. While I appreciated the kinder acoustics of the House of Blues, I found myself yearning for the raw sound that I imagined numbing my mom's eardrums back in the day and signaled the beginnings of the progressive rock movement. Yes' seasoned performers are some of rock 'n' roll's most accomplished musicians, and had their start in the same incubator as legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and the Moody Blues at the Marquee Club in London. Happily, because the group was in town to kick off their Rite of Spring mini-tour of North America in Houston last Sunday, I had the privilege of speaking with the preeminent bassist Chris Squire over spring break about Yes' long performance career and their newest album, set to be released this coming summer.
