Keyboardist Wakeman reunites with members of Yes to continue 35-year run of crafting music
By ALAN SCULLEY
Get Out

The release earlier this year of “The Ultimate Yes,” a package featuring two CDs of the progressive rock band's most popular music, plus a bonus disc of newly recorded acoustic material, marked the 35th anniversary of the group.

And from the looks of things, Yes may be regaining their stature in the music world after a decade that saw plenty of ups and downs.

Keyboardist Rick Wakeman has rejoined singer Jon Anderson, guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White to reform what many fans consider to be the definitive Yes lineup. And after recent tours that found Yes playing theater-sized venues, the just-launched 2004 tour — which stops at Mesa Amphitheatre on Tuesday — has the group back playing larger arenas.

“I think there’s been an upsurge of interest in the band on many different levels and we’re just happy to work, put on a bigger show, with Roger Dean designing a beautiful stage,” Anderson says. “It cost about a million dollars, so we’re putting together a beautiful visual event.”

Anderson doesn’t point to anything specific that has allowed Yes to return to arena-headlining stature. Rather, he suggests longevity is reaping rewards.

“Well, the music that we recorded in the ’70s is still viable today and the recording that we did in the ’80s were very commercial in that period and we just continued the style of the band and kept up the momentum,” he says.

Fans who see the current tour figure to hear a generous sampling of the music Yes has made over the past 35 years. Anderson says the band will play a three-hour set, with an acoustic mini-set being a new twist for the evening.

“We’re doing an acoustic set in the middle of the show,” he says. “It’s three new songs and four classic songs just revisited musically. It’s a lot of fun to do it.”

The acoustic set dovetails nicely with the bonus CD included in “The Ultimate Yes,” which features acoustic versions of five songs, including an appealing country-ish take on the hit song “Roundabout” and a new song, “Show Me.”

Certainly the presence of Wakeman will be another drawing card for Yes — if only because fans had good reason to doubt that he’d ever grace the stage with the band again. In interviews after the keyboardist left Yes in 1997, he virtually ruled out the possibility of returning.

Now Wakeman has more recently talked about not only remaining in Yes, but recording with the band again.

Anderson wasn’t making any firm predictions, but he agreed that the current lineup could very well extend their activities to the studio.

“We’re going to do some work next year and the year after and the year after, but I’m not quite sure in what format,” Anderson says. “But we do want to write together again and do some creative stuff in the studio. And it will be, as I say, some time next year and the year after.

“I don’t think we’re going to tour for awhile after this year. We're just going to spend a little time relaxing for a couple of years and getting together and writing some projects.”