Yes Pictures: 7/28/09; Upper Darby (Asia opening)

15 Jul 2014

Yes Pictures: 7/28/09; Upper Darby (Asia opening)

This post is the part of my Yes concert series of posts. I started this series here and you can read the others here.

I saw the progressive rock band Yes play the Tower Theater on July 28, 2009 in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. It was the second part of the In the Present Tour. You can read more about this show here.

The line-up Yes fielded that show was:

Benoit David: lead vocals, guitar
Steve Howe: guitars, vocals
Chris Squire: bass guitars, vocals
Alan White: drums, percussion
Oliver Wakeman: keyboards

The set Yes played was (the album from which the song comes in parenthesis):

Prerecorded intro music: Firebird Suite
Siberian Khatru (Close To The Edge)
I’ve Seen All Good People (The Yes Album)
Tempus Fugit (Drama)
Astral Traveller (Time And A Word)
And You And I (Close To The Edge)
Steve Howe solo: Sketches In The Sun (GTR)
Owner Of A Lonely Heart (90125)
Machine Messiah (Drama)
Heart Of The Sunrise (Fragile)
Encore: Roundabout (Fragile)
Encore: Starship Trooper (The Yes Album)

What made this show especially cool was that the band Asia was the opening band promoting their then new album Phoenix. For anyone who knows about these bands and their music will know that Asia has, for many years at various times, boasted Yes guitarist Steve Howe as its own guitarist. Additionally, Asia also claims former Buggles keyboardist Geoff Downes as a member, who is also a former (1980) and current (2011 through as of this writing) Yes member as well (though Downes was not in Yes at the time of this show). So, needless to say, Steve Howe had quite a workout playing both the opening set with Asia and the headlining set with Yes. Asia is also a cool band for any prog rock fan to see (despite complaints that Asia is on the commercial side) because former King Crimson/Renaissance/Roxy Music/Uriah Heep/U.K./&c. member John Wetton and former Emerson, Lake & Palmer (“ELP”) member Carl Palmer are also in the band making for a rather impressive super group which, during their set, took the time to play songs from each of the member’s pedigree, including “In the Court of the Crimson King” (a King Crimson track, obviously), “Fanfare for the Common Man” (an ELP track), “Video Killed the Radio Star” (a Buggles track), and, of course, “Roundabout” (a Yes track). In addition to all of this, during Asia’s performance of “In the Court of the Crimson King”, they introduced special guest, and original King Crimson and Foreigner member, Ian McDonald to play the flute, which was entirely unexpected and very awesome indeed.

While at the show (both Asia and Yes) I was able to take a few photographs and they are displayed below; please note that Yes, at this time, was still touring with a set designed by their long time artist Roger Dean that looked pretty cool, especially as different colors were projected onto it. Enjoy the photographs.