Reviews
Artist: The Anderson Wakeman Project 360
Towns: Basingstoke
Date: 22nd October 2010
Websites: http://www.jonanderson.com
http://www.rwcc.com
The Anvil at Basingstoke has a very strict "No photography" policy, so I didn't take my camera with me when we went to see The Anderson Wakeman Project 360, so I'll have to try and write a more visual review.
The stage was very simply, but very effectively, decorated. The floor was gently bathed from above, by spot lights, glowing either rose pink, or cerulean blue. There was a black backdrop, with three boxes covered with black cloth. On top of the boxes, and also scattered about the floor were fairy lights, flickering like candles on altars, lit in memory of the souls of the departed.
Squint, and you could imagine that the lights were from a distant Elven city, seen through the leaves of a forest on a moonless night. The imagery of church candles and Elven cities seemed very appropriate, as there is much about Jon Anderson that is spiritual, and much about him that is Elven. He seemed to glow with an inner light, (lesser mortals may believe that it was the theatre lighting); his jacket was grey, interspersed with splashes of yellow and green and seemed to change colour under the theatre lights, as if designed to keep an Elf hidden in a woodland glade.
And then there is his voice: every bit as beautiful as that of Tolkien's woodfolk.
At times, though, particularly during "Just One Man", Jon's sincerity seemed a bit overbearing, particularly to my British reserve. Americans are probably more inured to such sentiment, due to so many TV evangalists. Jon, you've been in the colonies too long. Time to come home.
Rick was dressed all in black (as seems to be customary these days), topped off with his black greatcoat. I wondered if he'd return for the second set wearing a sparkling cape, but he stuck with the coat. He had two keyboards, one sounding like a concert grand piano, the other being used for a more electronic sound, and as you'd expect, the sound of his playing was every bit as beautiful as the sound of Jon's voice. Two truly amazing musicains.
Both were aware that with a full band, the music can vary greatly in tempo, volume and mood, but with an acoustic guitar and a piano there was less variation possible, so there was a danger of the music becoming samey. They both tried to break the rhythm to avoid monotony; Rick, by interrupting with the odd bit of schoolboy humour, and Jon, by performing a reggae version of Time and a Word.
Jon seemed to be (a) genuinely surprised if Rick was telling a story which suddenly turned out to have a punch line, and (b) genuinely shocked if the joke was a little risque. "He's like this in the dressing room", he confessed. Maybe back when Rick and Jon were with Yes, they didn't give Rick a microphone.
Very impressed that the set list was taken from such a wide cross section of albums, dating back to Time and a Word up to the present day. Must confess that of the material they played, I much prefered the older songs, but that's probably due to familiarity.
The choice of songs for the encore seemed a little odd to me. I think that the finale of The Gates of Delirium ("Soon, oh soon the light...") is one of the most beautiful bits of music that Yes ever wrote, but it works best in contrast with the high energy of the rest of Gates. "The Meeting", from the album Anderson, Wakeman, Brufford and Howe, I don't think was their strongest or most well known song, and not a real high to conclude the evening with. I think it would have been better to have dropped "The Meeting" altogether, along with maybe one other song (possibly "Just One Man"), and included the entire "Gates of Delirium" as the encore.
Kicking myself as I've only just discovered that they did a pre-tour warm up gig in which they were joined by a choir, just round the corner from where I live, back on the 8th of October. Could have gone along to that and made my suggestion about the encore to them in person before the tour.
All told, a beautiful performance, and a beautiful evening.
Set list was:
Starship Trooper
Sweet Dreams
Track from Living Tree - Think it was probably called "Forever"
And You And I
The Living Tree Part 1
Long Distance Runaround
Garden
The Living Tree Part 2
Time and a Word
Owner Of A Lonely Heart
Yours Is No Disgrace
Southside of the Sky
Just One Man
Wondorous Stories
23/24/11
song for his brother - think probably called "Tony and Me"
Your Move
Turn Of The Century
House of Freedom
Roundabout
finale from Gates of Delirium
The Meeting
Pete Bradley