(Andy's) February 25, Monday

I decided to go to this concert Monday afternoon-what you call a last minute decision.

 

I went down to the stop with Brad and Bob. After we did a toke, Heather and Pat showed up. Heather was wearing all this jewelry and make -up, with her tight jeans tucked into knee-high boots and a silver stuff bikini-like top-dressed very "tight". Pat was wearing these pants and a top like Heather, sort of metal mesh-like mail armour. They were two-tone as well. Both of them looked really beautiful and, well, appealing.

 

I lost Bob and Bran, and left Heather and Pat in the Alexis Nihon while I went to the Kent tavern (same as Dylan) with Dave Hughes, Terry, Bill Halikas and Glen (Moose). Dave Essiambre and Steve McKnight were there. I had a beer and showed off the morracan shirt John sent me. It's a great shirt but too thin for winter.

yes

 

I met Pat + Heather again in Alexis Nihon and we went and bought tickets in the blues on the side of the stage. Inside it was quite crowded. We decided to go look for Alan + Ralph + co. who were sitting in the reds on the side. It took quite a bit of walking to get to them, and when we finally made it, the place was so crowded we decided not to try and get up.

 

On the way to our seats, brother Peter came up to pass the time of day. It was quite a shock, I had forgotten he was going.

 

Up in the blues, Danny showed up, and I shocked him 'cause I had said I wasn't going. Then Brad and Bob showed up so we walked around and did a toke. In one of the cans a plain-clothes pig came up and hassled a guy for smoking some dope [see the review below].

 

Eventually I returned to the blues for a spell. Then Danny and I took off for a toke, I phoned Bennie as well. We found Ralph + co. again, shoved and pushed our way to their seats. Rob Fenouhlet, Maggie, Sue, Michel, Gary Fields, Brian and Cliff were there.

 

Yes put on a decent concert; except they played all of their new double album, of which I'm not too fond, they were maybe a bit too refined, and Rick Wakeman (keyboards) who is very talented and does alot of good stuff, did sweet fuck all. Their stage was covered with props. On one side there was what looked like a set of ribs standing up, which flashed red on and off during a drum solo. Over the drums was the top half of a fish or lizard head, which later on split in half and opened up into a butterfly. One of the best things was a mirror disc which reflected light in what looked like a school of fish onto the pit.

 

Before the end of the concert Danny and me split back up to the blues to get Pat and Heather. Yes came on for two encores.

 

After the show I couldn't decide which bus to take 11:15 or 12:15, but I ended up taking the later one. Got a little more stoned on the way back.

 

From the Gazette review by Bill Mann:

 

"If Peanuts and Charley Brown are art to a lot of people, then Yes is rock and roll to the same people.

 

Actually, Yes is the antithesis of rock 'n' roll: soft, cuddly, innocuous. The old Elvis Presley would have freaked if he had heard Yes lead vocalist Jon Anderson (group founder) called "a rock singer".

 

"Well, you gotta admit," long-time progressive DJ and music student Angus Mackay was saying at the jam-packed Forum last night, "They're the best of the whole bunch - Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Genesis, and the like." But the best of WHAT? Pretentiorock? Synthesized bubblegum music?

 

A few years ago, when kids first started getting high a lot (there were 30 arrests for pot at last night's show, MUC police admitted, an unusually high figure for the normally bust-free Forum), they'd listen to The Beatles, or Stones. Today, in Montreal at least, it's Yes, and, yes, their music is a wimpy as their name, and Anderson's vocals have about as much clout as Tiny Tim's...

 

...Richard Meltzer, one of the founders of the New Journalism and one of the world's most respected rock-scene reporters, took a look at the elaborate props on stage for last night's show and just laughed. It's come a long way indeed from Buddy Holly...

 

...When a silver disk over the stage suddenly reflected tiny fingers of light, everyone ooh'd as expected ("Far out, man"), and the whole evening was just one big brain message. It had..little to do with..rock 'n' roll. It had a lot to do with pretentiousness and the gullibility of the mass record-buying audience..."