Rock bands you got to see that oughta be on the skids but ain't

Just got back from seeing Yes performing at Radio City Music Hall, on tour as the Yessymphonic Tour.

These dudes oughta be worn out, aged out, incapable of making sounds they first imprinted onto vinyl 25 to 30 years ago. They ought to sound pathetic when they play their old stuff, and irrelevant when they bring out the new. I guess someone forgot to tell them that!

Damn they’re good! Howe Anderson Squire and company can still conjure up sounds to expand your skull and blow it apart with ecstatic wow-blasts of texture and pulse. It is a rare band that can perform live the material that they recorded in the studio and have it come out sounding every bit as good, and that’s true enough for ensembles that did their studio versions just a few months ago. Most of the material they did tonight dates back to an era when Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were modern bands and the breakup of the Beatles was current news.

If a Yessymphonic tours album happens to appear (including bootleg:)), get yourself a copy.

The Moody Blues!!!

I saw these guys a couple of years ago and they can out rock any of these younger bands. Of all the many concerts I have been to this was by far the most impressive!

I saw Yes at MSG in the late seventies (remember “in the round”?). Wish I’d been at Radio City Music Hall. Which brings me to my beef with rock bands that oughta be on the skids but ain’t. They are charging too much for tickets. I saw The Allman Brothers six months ago at the Beacon Theater and it was $65. It was a great concert and it was worth it but I still think that $65 is too much. The bassist was merely adequate and Jaimoe seemed lethargic and just going through the motions. But Butch Trucks was fantastic, there was a third percussionist as well, Gregg was in terrific voice, Derek Trucks is a prodigy and Warren Haynes can always be counted on to provide serious jams.