New YES studio album- Mirror to the Sky

[arturs]

Big tours are major commercial enterprises. You think all the old bands playing nostalgia set lists, and is practically all of them, have got a major commercial decision wrong?

I understand why the bands do what they do and I agree with you, to a point. But if the bands are actually recording new music, they would gain more sales and perhaps more long-term viability by actually playing the new music. Otherwise why record anything new at all?

I remember when Yes recorded FFH, they played about 2/3 of the album live. Good for them. The hardcore fans got something new and they were doing brisk business at the merch tables. When they only play 2 songs from Quest, is there similar interest in the new music? I would guess not.

I'm impressed with bands like Caravan who still play a lot of "new stuff" along with selected classics. Throughout the 2010's they were doing 5-6 songs off Paradise Filter. How many extra copies of PF did they sell by doing that? Who knows? But for someone like me it makes me feel a band is more vital and worthy if they have solid new material to offer. I go home with more satisfaction after a show with new material.

[bondegezou]

I understand why the bands do what they do and I agree with you, to a point. But if the bands are actually recording new music, they would gain more sales and perhaps more long-term viability by actually playing the new music. Otherwise why record anything new at all?

I remember when Yes recorded FFH, they played about 2/3 of the album live. Good for them. The hardcore fans got something new and they were doing brisk business at the merch tables. When they only play 2 songs from Quest, is there similar interest in the new music? I would guess not.

I'm impressed with bands like Caravan who still play a lot of "new stuff" along with selected classics. Throughout the 2010's they were doing 5-6 songs off Paradise Filter. How many extra copies of PF did they sell by doing that? Who knows? But for someone like me it makes me feel a band is more vital and worthy if they have solid new material to offer. I go home with more satisfaction after a show with new material.

I'm all for bands recording new material and playing it live. I applaud bands that do that, Caravan, Yes on the Fly from Here tour. I hope Yes play plenty of their new album live this year, and indeed more generally better represent the last quarter century of Yes music. This appeals to some of us, including you and me.

I'm just saying it's very obvious, for a wide range of acts, that the economics strongly encourages nostalgic set lists, which is why most older bands, most of the time, do it -- King Crimson, Kansas, Yes, The Who, Asia, ABBA (in hologrammatic form), etc. Ticket sales are, these days, a much more important source of revenue. The energy in the audience drops when new music is played. Sales of new music are way down and streaming income is poor.

I think Yes make new music because they want to. Steve Howe has a fire in his belly and he wants to get out a series of Yes albums. I believe these albums do well enough; they'll turn a profit. It's good for any enterprise to have diversity in its income streams, so new studio albums, live albums, archival releases and letting Warner buy you out of future royalties on the back catalogue all contribute to that. But the best way for Yes to generate income is for them to tour playing material from The Yes Album to Going for the One (or from 90125, although Howe isn't interested in that and it would seem odd for the current band to play 90125 given no members in common). That's what promoters want. That's what most of the audience wants.

So that's what they do.

This may be an overly Marxist analysis? I think Howe and the others do also like playing the old stuff. It's not surprising that musicians in their 60s and 70s look back more than they look forward. But I think if there was more money in playing new material live, they'd be doing that. Some musicians may try to dress it up *cough* Fripp *cough* but they're all sucking at the teat of nostalgia.

[3LockBox]

I can’t decide if I think Steve Hogarth or Bruce Dickinson is the greatest replacement singer of all time.

Imma go with Bruce. I like H but he did bring a different energy to the band. H couldn't do bombast like Fish, even if I think Fish was a tad too enamored with his own voice. But I think Fish era Marillion had more urgency to their sound.

[Aquatarkus]

Promoters regularly make clear they want the hits played. Bands like AFJP have talked about the pressures on them to play the old warhorses. Steve Hackett's ticket sales improved when he started making his sets more nostalgic. And so on. Yes, I would say the evidence is overwhelming that audiences want classic material.

Big tours are major commercial enterprises. You think all the old bands playing nostalgia set lists, and is practically all of them, have got a major commercial decision wrong?

Perhaps not wrong, certainly if we look at the numbers but misguided? Maybe. If the bands allow the promoters to entirely set the expectations of the audience. Let's look at King Crimson for a moment. Up until the recent incarnation post 2015, Fripp always insisted on living in the present with new music front and center. He went so far as to ridicule fans (and I assume promoters) asking for the band to play Schizoid Man every night. He wrote numerous posts on how King Crimson would never live on by being a nostalgia act. As late as 2003, KC was writing and recording new music and focusing on that live. I saw those tours in San Francisco 2000-03. There were always folks calling for some of the warhorses sung by Greg Lake but the band had no trouble selling out venues like the Fillmore and playing music made by the guys up on stage. Same way back when in the 80's with that version of KC and in the 90's with the Thrak band. They set the expectation, or rather Fripp did as he always does since it is his band. Still managed to tour successfully many times over with the new music model. KC can't be the only band that can pull that off, or has something changed in the last twenty years in the touring industry. I honestly don't know but I find it a curious question just the same.

To some degree with Yes, as long as Jon Anderson was the lead vocalist live, the band could sidestep the issue just because he's the vocalist for all of the bands biggest songs over a long period of time. Fripp is not a singer and KC has had many of them in their long 50 plus year history and so some might suggest as long as Belew was in the band, they focused on songs he performed, which by KC standards for lead vox, covered a relatively long period of time and a lot of material. And yet, going back to the early 70's, you still didn't see Gordon Haskell singing Greg Lake songs for the most part. I rather wish they let John Wetton sing some of the early material given his wonderful voice which was at home in Lake's range. Rare exceptions, but for the most part, the live show was what the band was doing in the moment plus a fair amount of improv, which carried over to the last ensemble incarnation as well even if that band for the first time played songs from the entire band history. Fitting given the 50 year celebrations and the fact that many fans, myself included, never got to hear some of that material performed live despite going to see the band in three different decades!

(apologies if I am droning on a bit here).

[Aquatarkus]

I'm all for bands recording new material and playing it live. I applaud bands that do that, Caravan, Yes on the Fly from Here tour. I hope Yes play plenty of their new album live this year, and indeed more generally better represent the last quarter century of Yes music. This appeals to some of us, including you and me.

I'm just saying it's very obvious, for a wide range of acts, that the economics strongly encourages nostalgic set lists, which is why most older bands, most of the time, do it -- King Crimson, Kansas, Yes, The Who, Asia, ABBA (in hologrammatic form), etc. Ticket sales are, these days, a much more important source of revenue. The energy in the audience drops when new music is played. Sales of new music are way down and streaming income is poor.

I think Yes make new music because they want to. Steve Howe has a fire in his belly and he wants to get out a series of Yes albums. I believe these albums do well enough; they'll turn a profit. It's good for any enterprise to have diversity in its income streams, so new studio albums, live albums, archival releases and letting Warner buy you out of future royalties on the back catalogue all contribute to that. But the best way for Yes to generate income is for them to tour playing material from The Yes Album to Going for the One (or from 90125, although Howe isn't interested in that and it would seem odd for the current band to play 90125 given no members in common). That's what promoters want. That's what most of the audience wants.

So that's what they do.

This may be an overly Marxist analysis? I think Howe and the others do also like playing the old stuff. It's not surprising that musicians in their 60s and 70s look back more than they look forward. But I think if there was more money in playing new material live, they'd be doing that. Some musicians may try to dress it up *cough* Fripp *cough* but they're all sucking at the teat of nostalgia.

I'm very grateful that Yes is making new music. The fact that I actually like much of it makes me want to hear more of it live. That said, since I've never heard two thirds of Relayer live and I've been going to shows since 1980, I'm totally down for the nostagic trip that is Relayer if they bring that to the States! I hope they do.

[moecurlythanu]

This may be an overly Marxist analysis?

Indeed. The masses are the opiate of Yes.

[JJ88]

The crazy thing for me is observing how noticeably more energetic they are in the Montreaux performance, filmed not that much earlier than Tsongas.

That one is indeed even better. 'Awaken' is a superb performance. There's the novelty of a few Magnification tracks with Wakeman playing.

They were building things up again in that period, playing Wembley Arena and Madison Square Garden.

[Mister Triscuits]

Let's look at King Crimson for a moment. Up until the recent incarnation post 2015, Fripp always insisted on living in the present with new music front and center. He went so far as to ridicule fans (and I assume promoters) asking for the band to play Schizoid Man every night. He wrote numerous posts on how King Crimson would never live on by being a nostalgia act. As late as 2003, KC was writing and recording new music and focusing on that live. I saw those tours in San Francisco 2000-03. There were always folks calling for some of the warhorses sung by Greg Lake but the band had no trouble selling out venues like the Fillmore and playing music made by the guys up on stage. Same way back when in the 80's with that version of KC and in the 90's with the Thrak band.

Indeed! And even in this one recent phase where they looked back to earlier repertoire, they selected a fair amount of material that had never (or almost never, like the song "Islands," which was played only a couple of times by the '70s band) been played live by the earlier incarnations of the band. The compositions may have been old, but they were new to the stage. There was no question of just going through the motions or rehashing well-worn old favorites.

And then there's Ian Anderson, who has been as guilty as anyone of exploiting the nostalgia trip. He still managed in recent-ish years to tour TAAB2 and Homo Erraticus with half the set devoted to playing the new album in full.

[Scott Bails]

Let's look at King Crimson for a moment. Up until the recent incarnation post 2015, Fripp always insisted on living in the present with new music front and center. He went so far as to ridicule fans (and I assume promoters) asking for the band to play Schizoid Man every night. He wrote numerous posts on how King Crimson would never live on by being a nostalgia act. As late as 2003, KC was writing and recording new music and focusing on that live. I saw those tours in San Francisco 2000-03. There were always folks calling for some of the warhorses sung by Greg Lake but the band had no trouble selling out venues like the Fillmore and playing music made by the guys up on stage. Same way back when in the 80's with that version of KC and in the 90's with the Thrak band. They set the expectation, or rather Fripp did as he always does since it is his band. Still managed to tour successfully many times over with the new music model. KC can't be the only band that can pull that off, or has something changed in the last twenty years in the touring industry. I honestly don't know but I find it a curious question just the same.

I think Crimson is a bit of a rarity, in that they don't really have casual fans who are there to hear the songs they've heard on the radio. Yes have an obligation to play things like Roundabout and Owner because a significant portion of their audience are just classic rock fans who what to hear what they're familiar with. Crimson doesn't have that.

[Garden Dreamer]

So who are these people wandering around the streets, talking about Yes?

[vostoklake]

Up until 2013, King Crimson fans pissed and moaned that the band wouldn't play the 60s/70s materials. For the last decade, they've pissed and moaned about them playing the 60s/70s material. Similarly, people used to talk about what a garbage singer/frontman Adrian Belew was (cf. "ProzaKc Blues"). Now: it's all about what a garbage singer Jakko Jakszyk is, bring back Adrian.

I honestly think it boils down to: Fripp's philosophy and his claims to be following an internal discipline pisses people off ("he thinks he's so smart/better than me") and thus it's great fun to take whatever interpretation of the fact makes him look like a liar, a charlatan, a hypocrite and a turkey. No doubt Fripp welcomes such comments as a "hair shirt"", as he always reposts the rudest ones on Facebook.

Myself, I accept Fripp's statement at face value that the role of the 2013-21 band ("redemption and completion") was different from that of the Belew-era bands, hence the different lineup and the different setlists. I think it was fuckin' great to have "One More Red Nightmare" and "Starless" played live, and no doubt others would feel the same way about Lizard or whatever. It was noted that the new material written with Jakko, "Radical Action" etc., dropped out of the setlist in the latter stages. I think Fripp was consciously aware that an end was coming and he wanted to present something of a Greatest Hits setlist to go out on. I see no problem or hypocrisy with that. What's right at point X might not be right at point Y.

"Redemption" might also have a personal meaning - cf. Fripp's apologies for being such a dickbag to Mel Collins in the 70s.

[Sean]

Could the people that pissed and moaned for the lack of classics from the 70s be different from the ones that pissed and moaned in the last ten years about no new KC music? I don't hear that much of the "Bring Belew Back" crowd. I think Jakko was well accepted by the great majority of fans. The ones that wanted to hear that old stuff. He had the right sort of voice to do that 60s/70s stuff justice in a way that Adrian wouldn't have. Kinda helps to have a Brit sing the tunes sung by Brits, methinks. I felt the Belew years had run their course right around the time Robert pulled the plug. I also felt this recent incarnation pretty much ran their course when Robert pulled the plug on it. We got a LOT from both over the years. If they were to do something in the future I'd hope yet again some new characters would emerge to take in yet another fresh direction. That said, nobody's getting younger and without Robert there's no point. Heck, he might live to be 100 and have another round of Crim in him, but I feel like if it's over for good they gave us MUCH MORE than most of their peers. A consistently better quality too. Plenty to enjoy in hindsight.

[Rick L.]

Could the people that pissed and moaned for the lack of classics from the 70s be different from the ones that pissed and moaned in the last ten years about no new KC music?

YES

[Sean]

I think so too!

[moecurlythanu]

^ Great post, Sean.

[bondegezou]

Perhaps not wrong, certainly if we look at the numbers but misguided? Maybe. If the bands allow the promoters to entirely set the expectations of the audience. Let's look at King Crimson for a moment. Up until the recent incarnation post 2015, Fripp always insisted on living in the present with new music front and center. He went so far as to ridicule fans (and I assume promoters) asking for the band to play Schizoid Man every night. He wrote numerous posts on how King Crimson would never live on by being a nostalgia act. As late as 2003, KC was writing and recording new music and focusing on that live. I saw those tours in San Francisco 2000-03. There were always folks calling for some of the warhorses sung by Greg Lake but the band had no trouble selling out venues like the Fillmore and playing music made by the guys up on stage. Same way back when in the 80's with that version of KC and in the 90's with the Thrak band. They set the expectation, or rather Fripp did as he always does since it is his band. Still managed to tour successfully many times over with the new music model. KC can't be the only band that can pull that off, or has something changed in the last twenty years in the touring industry. I honestly don't know but I find it a curious question just the same.

Don't King Crimson prove the point? They played almost entirely new sets until 1994, when they added a bunch of older songs to the set as well. That continued until 2003. Then in 2008, they just played old stuff. From 2014 onwards, they played mostly old stuff. This is the same trajectory as most bands, more or less. As acts get older, they shift from live sets focusing on new music to sets focusing on nostalgia. Looks to me like Crimson fit the model rather than being an exception.

[bondegezou]

Yes have an obligation to play things like Roundabout and Owner because a significant portion of their audience are just classic rock fans who what to hear what they're familiar with. Crimson doesn't have that.

It might be worth pointing out that (Howe's) Yes haven't played "Owner" since 1 June 2016.

[ronmac]

All this talk about King Crimson. All I know is that I didn't vote for him.

[Mstove]

Perhaps not wrong, certainly if we look at the numbers but misguided? Maybe. If the bands allow the promoters to entirely set the expectations of the audience. Let's look at King Crimson for a moment. Up until the recent incarnation post 2015, Fripp always insisted on living in the present with new music front and center. He went so far as to ridicule fans (and I assume promoters) asking for the band to play Schizoid Man every night. He wrote numerous posts on how King Crimson would never live on by being a nostalgia act. As late as 2003, KC was writing and recording new music and focusing on that live. I saw those tours in San Francisco 2000-03. There were always folks calling for some of the warhorses sung by Greg Lake but the band had no trouble selling out venues like the Fillmore and playing music made by the guys up on stage. Same way back when in the 80's with that version of KC and in the 90's with the Thrak band. They set the expectation, or rather Fripp did as he always does since it is his band. Still managed to tour successfully many times over with the new music model. KC can't be the only band that can pull that off, or has something changed in the last twenty years in the touring industry. I honestly don't know but I find it a curious question just the same.

To some degree with Yes, as long as Jon Anderson was the lead vocalist live, the band could sidestep the issue just because he's the vocalist for all of the bands biggest songs over a long period of time. Fripp is not a singer and KC has had many of them in their long 50 plus year history and so some might suggest as long as Belew was in the band, they focused on songs he performed, which by KC standards for lead vox, covered a relatively long period of time and a lot of material. And yet, going back to the early 70's, you still didn't see Gordon Haskell singing Greg Lake songs for the most part. I rather wish they let John Wetton sing some of the early material given his wonderful voice which was at home in Lake's range. Rare exceptions, but for the most part, the live show was what the band was doing in the moment plus a fair amount of improv, which carried over to the last ensemble incarnation as well even if that band for the first time played songs from the entire band history. Fitting given the 50 year celebrations and the fact that many fans, myself included, never got to hear some of that material performed live despite going to see the band in three different decades!

(apologies if I am droning on a bit here).

While I agree with you in a way, and I love what KC has done over all the years - including the last round of tours which were amazing, I think Henry has a point. While KC did it better than most and I think with the reimagined lineup(s) they brought freshness to the older stuff, they were still generally doing a similar thing as most bands in terms of setlists. "As late as 2003", could also read as "until about 20 years ago". 2000-2003 isn't exactly recent. Many of us are all just old and it doesn't seem like 2003 is a long time ago.

[Aggie87]

Don't King Crimson prove the point? They played almost entirely new sets until 1994, when they added a bunch of older songs to the set as well. That continued until 2003. Then in 2008, they just played old stuff. From 2014 onwards, they played mostly old stuff. This is the same trajectory as most bands, more or less. As acts get older, they shift from live sets focusing on new music to sets focusing on nostalgia. Looks to me like Crimson fit the model rather than being an exception.

I think what's different is that Fripp intentionally disbanded the version of KC that was making new music in 2003, and when he started things back up in 2014 (discounting the brief 2008 lineup, since it really didn't do much of anything), it was with the intention of having a band that was intentionally focused on playing their catalog, and not so much new music. Granted, that lineup did that very well.

But that was the first time that Fripp configured KC as backward looking, rather than forward.

Most other typical bands gradually turn into a catalog band over time, whereas Fripp intentionally built the '14 lineup with that in mind specifically. With only Mastelotto remaining from the '03 lineup that was producing new music.

[Paulrus]

I'll just add that one reason KC was able to sell out places like The Fillmore in the 90's/early 2000's while touring mostly new music was because they were riding the progressive music resurgence that lifted ALL boats back then. I think that wave has ebbed, and -- along with Covid -- it's unlikely anyone (except Porcupine Tree, it seems) will scale those heights again.

[TheLoony]

I'm not a street person, but that could ONLY mean a follow up to Machine Messiah penned by Sherwood himself! Word on the pool deck is its more Painkiller era Priest than YES, but only in the bass. Bring it on!

Priest and Yes in the same thread. Painkiller is just delightful.

[ronmac]

Priest and Yes in the same thread. Painkiller is just delightful.

Hell, Rob Halford got the Harley idea from Jon Anderson.

[moecurlythanu]

Hell, Rob Halford got the Harley idea from Jon Anderson.

I thought Jon's was a pet butterfly named Harley?

[Sean]

Mirror To The Sky.... Out May 19th.