It's really a mess.
The band lied during the fundraising process pretty blatantly in order to meet their funding goal, promising a studio album they later admitted they never planned to make, in addition to a live album. They promised insider updates, mostly nothing. Last posting on their official site was them quoting a backer and flaming him back in December and promising a January update that didn't happen. Albums were supposed to be out this month- no updates.
They replaced their guitarist like 3-4 months ago without ever telling their Kickstarter followers on Kickstarter to this day. Word is they are actually talking about releasing a live DVD of the show that somehow will never show the original guitarist playing and where his guitar sounds are completely cut from the live album, assuming they ever actually get around to releasing either to their backers who paid them in AUGUST.
Meanwhile, the fans have divided into camps. There's the camp that things Jon is a messiah or something that thinks it's just a pleasure to throw money at him and expects nothing back, and the camp that thinks he is a guilty of fraud and is destroying his legacy. Some people are in between.
Over at a Yes forum site, the owner has had a complete meltdown and banned a bunch of people for criticizing the Anderson-Ponty Band business practices, closed threads, deleted posts, and threatened more bannings to come. This may or may not have something to do with the large banner ads he was running during the APB fundraising campaign for them, which looked an awful lot like paid advertising. He's claiming he doesn't like "negativity" and people need to just "move on", except the people who make excuses for Jon, those people he thinks are swell.
Total clusterfuck on all counts.
Say what you want about Yes the band, but you pay them for an album and you do get an album, in seconds if you are buying a download.
You pay Jon Anderson for two albums and insider access in August, and in February you are sitting around with no updates, a loose promise of one album, a bunch of insane fan boys pissed at you for criticizing their god-hero (Some in outright threatening ways), possibly banned from forums and cut off from talking to you Internet pals for having the gall to speak the truth, and going in circles with Kickstarter customer service. One guy actually got quoted and slammed in an official update from the band in December- an update that managed not to actually update anyone on the band or the progress of the album. They just took time of out of their day to criticize their financial backers and complain that their feelings were hurt, but couldn't answer any questions about or update the status of, you know, the project they were paid to do.
Quite honestly, my question now isn't how could Yes get rid of Jon Anderson, but rather how the hell could they put up with him on and off for 40 years? The other members of the band must have had the patience of Saints.
Personally, I will never pay for anything Jon Anderson sings on ever again. I plan to keep on buying Yes CDs- on the condition that Jon Anderson keeps on not singing on them.
No question Jon is a great musician. Very talented person. It's a shame he's also turned into a bit of a con artist in his latter days. I wonder if he was like this all along or it just started up lately. I've heard plenty of rumors that date back at least to the 80s that this experience lends a lot more credence to for me.
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Originally Posted by Paulrus
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