How John Lennon getting drunk ended up seeing rock legends Yes get large | Music | Entertainment | EUROtoday
Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.
John Lennon’s consuming noticed him miss the Yes gig (Image: Getty)
They have survived extra splits and squabbles than a TV cleaning soap marriage, and bought over 30million albums worldwide. Famous followers vary from Lady Gaga to Phil Collins, through U2’s The Edge and Bill Gates. But former singer Jon Anderson says Yes “would not have existed without the Beatles – when I heard Tomorrow Never Knows I realised they weren’t just a rock’n’roll band. That was the most sonically and lyrically adventurous departure from everything I’d ever heard. It was like listening to music for the first time. It affected us because it was revolutionary. And Sergeant Pepper was a ridiculously great move in a direction that no one had even perceived before.
“We realised that from that moment onwards, anything was possible. That’s why Yes created what we created.”
The Beatles returned the love. John Lennon rated Anderson’s vocals so extremely he tried to signal him to Apple Records, and Paul McCartney and George Harrison each adored Yes’s cowl of the Fab Four’s Every Little Thing on their 1969 debut album; their intense re-imaging of Eleanor Rigby was by no means formally launched.
Yes, together with veteran virtuoso guitarist Steve Howe, tour Britain subsequent month, celebrating the 55th anniversary of their 1971 multi-platinum Fragile album. Prog Rock, a really English creation, conquered the globe, and Yes had been within the vanguard. Their intricate compositions, marrying classical, folks and rock influences to breath-taking musicianship and fantastical lyrics, made them millionaires. Forming in London 58 years in the past, they’ve launched six platinum or multi-platinum albums. They topped the US singles chart with Owner Of A Lonely Heart and their songs have featured prominently in movies like School Of Rock and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
But even Yes couldn’t beat American climate. A torrential downpour stopped them from even beginning their headlining set at Oklahoma’s Zoo Amphitheatre in 2017. “The rain was so heavy, Carl Palmer joked that canoes were required to get off-stage. We thought someone might start building an ark,” recollects keyboard wizard Geoff Downes. “And in Maryland, we’d only played three songs when the security people started waving flags at us and shouting ‘Get off the stage there’s a hurricane coming!’”
The band weathered one other storm once they recruited Buggles stars Geoff and Trevor ‘Mad Professor’ Horn to interchange Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson respectively in May 1980. Hardcore UK followers dismissed the brand new line-up as “Yeggles”. Geoff, 73, recollects, “There was a lot of animosity. I was halfway through an organ solo in Brighton when someone shouted ‘Rick Wakeman!’ But Trevor got more stick because Jon was so revered. You just had to shrug it off and carry on. American audiences were much more accepting – they were so stoned they didn’t really care who was in the band!”
The ex-Buggles proved their song-writing and manufacturing abilities on their subsequent Top 3 album Drama, launched in August 1980. Then got here the daunting reside reveals. “The first gig on the Drama tour was at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto to 20,000 people,” says Geoff. “I could hardly believe it. I’d come from studio work, it was awe-inspiring; a baptism of fire.”
That September, Yes bought out three consecutive nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden, enjoying to 63,000 folks. The self-defined ‘musical dysfunctional family’ had their Spinal Tap second there the next 12 months once they performed on a spherical stage on the centre of the world.
Geoff recollects, “It was surrounded by curtains and we were smuggled in through a trap door; then the lights would shine down and the audience would suddenly see five figures appear inside it. It was very effective. Except on this occasion the curtain didn’t open and we had to crawl under it…”
Even funnier, Geoff’s predecessor Rick Wakeman was so paralytic when he performed the Paramount Theatre, Seattle on his 1976 solo tour, that he informed every band member he’d be opening with a unique track. Consequently, they performed 4 numbers concurrently. Incredibly the ensuing cacophony obtained a glowing assessment from one critic who mistook it for jazz-rock fusion. Rick additionally arrived on stage, unrehearsed, utilizing the theatre’s Wurlitzer which promptly collapsed leaving him with cuts, bruises, and a dislocated shoulder.
Read extra: Paul McCartney pays devastated tribute as bandmate dies – ‘Sad to see him go’
The YES Fragile Tour begins on twenty second April in Glasgow (Image: YES)
In 1977, Yes performed six consecutive sold-out nights on the Wembley Empire Pool (a complete of 75,000 folks). Venues are smaller now, however nonetheless promote out. Geoff says, “We played some weird places in America last October, like the chicken-in-a-basket circuit where you start and they’re still eating their desserts; casinos too where you don’t get a typical Yes audience.”
Bassist Chris Squire and guitarist Peter Banks fashioned the unique line-up in 1968, recruiting Jon Anderson whose distinctive excessive tenor had a spine-tingling ethereal high quality – Yes’s present vocalist, Californian Jon Davison has an identical bewitching voice. John Lennon noticed Anderson sing at London’s Speakeasy Club and tried to signal him to Apple. According to up to date sources, Lennon “got drunk and missed Yes’s later gig at the club,” and Atlantic snapped them up as an alternative.
The Fab Four connection goes on. Alan White (Yes’s drummer from 1972 till his demise in 2022) performed in Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and on classics like Instant Karma and the Imagine album, and Harrison’s All Things Must Pass; and Rick Wakeman starred with Ringo and Roger Daltrey in Ken Russell’s 1975 movie Lisztomania.
When Steve Howe joined Yes in May 1970, he talked the band out of doing covers, and co-wrote a few of their best-known songs together with Starship Trooper, Yours Is No Disgrace, and prog masterpiece Roundabout.
“I helped change Yes’s direction,” says Steve, 78. “I don’t try and take credit. They were a great band but they hadn’t proved themselves as artists. I had no interest in covers.”
Eccentricity abounded. Wakeman, who joined in 1971 simply hours earlier than David Bowie tried to recruit him, was arrested thrice in Soviet Russia for crimes like shopping for and making an attempt to smuggle residence a Russian admiral’s uniform. Rick additionally famously ate a full hen vindaloo meal on stage on the band’s 1973 UK tour throughout a track the place “I didn’t have much to do”.
Jon Anderson, who left Yes for good in 2008, famend for his non secular and sometimes baffling lyrics, would meditate in a teepee on tour and speak to crops. While Chris Squire, RIP, was liable to turning to board their non-public jet carrying only a jacket and a pair of y-fronts. “He’d be late getting up at the hotel – we used to call him The Late Chris Squire – and he was in such a rush [and so hungover] he packed his trousers.”
Stockport-born Geoff, a staunch Cardiff City supporter appears comparatively regular. The son of church organist, Geoff fashioned jazz-fusion band, She’s French, in his teenagers earlier than transferring to London and discovering himself sharing a home in Clapham with Chrissie Hynde. Nick Kent, a junkie rock author, had lived within the room earlier than him. “There were a few hypodermic syringes about. It was a little scary but Chrissie was friendly. She was struggling to learn guitar – she only knew a couple of chords then – and going out with Johnny Rotten at the time. One day she came back with a safety pin in her cheek. I heard she was difficult to deal with, but she was pleasant and very down to earth; a real character.”
Geoff’s early jobs included session enjoying and writing radio advert jingles. “I did jingles for anything that came along – cars, nappies, cigarettes, Allied Carpets. The best was for Wrigley’s Orbit Sugar-Free Gum.”
In 1975, Downes was MD for the touring Wombles present earlier than assembly Trevor Horn at an audition, beating thirty different musicians to play keyboards with pop star Tina Charles – then Horn’s girlfriend. They backed her reside and produced her data. Their breakthrough as The Buggles got here in 1979 with the worldwide hit Video Killed The Radio Star – a Number One smash, the primary track ever performed on MTV, and later sampled by Will.i.am and Nicki Minaj on their world 2010 hit Check It Out.
The pair initially joined guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Chris Squire and late drummer Alan White
You would want Google Slides to chart all their subsequent line-up adjustments. Downes and Howe are within the present band with Jay Schellen (drums), Jon Davison (vocals) and Billy Sherwood (bass). In 1981, when Horn give up to pursue his massively profitable and influential profession as a producer, Yes (briefly) referred to as it a day, and Geoff and Steve fashioned 80s supergroup Asia (nonetheless touring) with King Crimson bassist/singer John Wetton and drummer Carl Palmer from Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Geoff additionally launched solo albums, fashioned Downes Braide Association with Sia collaborator Chris Braide, labored with stars together with Mike Oldfield and the Thompson Twins, and performed on Kate Bush’s 1981 Dreaming album, including stabbing horns to Sat In Your Lap.
Father-of-two Geoff lives in West Wales by the ocean and relaxes by portray, watching soccer and writing his autobiography. Yes’s Fragile tour begins subsequent month and ends with two nights on the Palladium in May. “We’re doing Sunday Night at the London Palladium – that takes me back… the ITV variety show with the Tiller Girls and the revolving stage,” Geoff beams.
“Fragile was the defining Yes LP, we’ll be playing strictly in order as it is on the album, starting with Roundabout which we normally do at the end of the set.
“I should be semi-retired at my age, but we’ve got a few things coming up” – together with a brand new Yes album – “so I’m not hanging up the organ stops yet.”
*The YES Fragile Tour begins on 22nd April in Glasgow and ends with 2 reveals on the London Palladium on 3rd and 4th May. For information and tickets see yesworld.com
https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/2184082/john-lennon-getting-drunk-yes-record-deal