Yes-Time to get Jon Anderson & Rick Wakeman back in the group

[Frumious B]

I think it's one thing to generate material for a project, get all the "right" retro sounds and do your best 70s pastiche and another thing to write a song with some heart, soul, heft and substance to it that you want to play over and over again. People talk about Jon Davison like he's some gifted young whiz kid when he's actually fairly close to the same age that Jon Anderson was when he was doing ABWH with the entire current Yes' setlist over a decade in the rear view mirror. I can't say I've heard anything of Davison that makes me excited about the prospect of him co-writing a Yes record.

[bondegezou]

The thing that makes the idea of Anderson, Howe, Squire and White patching things up appealing to me is that these are guys who have freakin' lived this music their entire adult lives. They were there. They know all about the triumph, the jubilation, the struggle and the heartache...through hell and back again. Anderson has stared death right in the face and lived to sing about it. If the working relationships could be reestablished I think this could be a great recipe for mature modern Yes music that doesn't overly trade on past glories and is an honest reflection of who these guys are and where their heads and hearts are today.

Anderson, Howe, Squire and White reunited in 1990 and in 1995, staying together through to 2004. I imagine if they reunited in 2014, the result would be broadly similar. I don't really see what would be radically different to those previous reunions. (Anderson's near-death experiences in 2008 haven't obviously had a profound impact on his solo songwriting, for example.) Maybe it would be...

I liked much of what happened with those previous reunions. I like Keys to Ascension 2, The Ladder and Magnification. A band today with Anderson, Squire, Howe and White could be great. I'd certainly be at the front of the queue to hear what they can offer. But I have to say the evidence base doesn't support your comments.

I come back to this same point. You take a band like Led Zeppelin, or Genesis with Gabriel and/or Hackett: the potential in such reunions is largely untested. You could write flowery prose about what such a reunion would be like and there would be enough doubt that, with a bit of enthusiasm and love, we could all fall behind such optimism. But Yes have reunited and re-reunited and re-re-reunited. I think we know what's likely to happen.

I think it's one thing to generate material for a project, get all the "right" retro sounds and do your best 70s pastiche and another thing to write a song with some heart, soul, heft and substance to it that you want to play over and over again. People talk about Jon Davison like he's some gifted young whiz kid when he's actually fairly close to the same age that Jon Anderson was when he was doing ABWH with the entire current Yes' setlist over a decade in the rear view mirror. I can't say I've heard anything of Davison that makes me excited about the prospect of him co-writing a Yes record.

Davison is something of an unknown. Personally, I really like what I've heard from him so far, but I can absolutely understand your caution. (I don't think his age is particularly relevant.) That he is an unknown offers the possibility of something really exciting. You're able to get all excited about the possibility of an Anderson reunion, so I would have thought that you should be able to understand (if not agree with) the optimism fuelling some fans' views of an album with Davison.

Faced with uncertain outcomes, you presume the one with Anderson will be fantabulosic, but the one with Davison, you're all skeptical. You offer uplifting rhetoric about a reunion with Anderson ("great recipe... mature... honest reflection... heads and hearts...") but cold-hearted cynicism about an album with Davison. It seems to me that both scenarios have good and bad possible outcomes, but one scenario, the album with Davison, is actually in the works, so whatever our expectations, we'll hear the reality soon enough.

Henry

[Scott Bails]

Faced with uncertain outcomes, you presume the one with Anderson will be fantabulosic, but the one with Davison, you're all skeptical. You offer uplifting rhetoric about a reunion with Anderson ("great recipe... mature... honest reflection... heads and hearts...") but cold-hearted cynicism about an album with Davison. It seems to me that both scenarios have good and bad possible outcomes, but one scenario, the album with Davison, is actually in the works, so whatever our expectations, we'll hear the reality soon enough.

Henry

Bravo.