A series examining recordings from the Around the World in 80 Dates tour of 1991-92 in relation to the Union Live 30th Anniversary reissue.
I know I keep saying I'm going to get to the recordings in question, but I feel like the context of Around the World in 80 Dates requires further examination before doing so, because it ties into the cognitive dissonance of why such a great tour (from an audience perspective) has such a lousy legacy. As I mentioned in the previous essay, the release of Union is not the reason why the 80 Dates tour exists. Rather, the tour is the reason why the album exists. So to place the tour in a historical and (especially) congratulatory context, all of the accompanying promotion is really slanted towards the examination of Yes as an institution. A few years past their porcelain anniversary (which is quite fitting when you really think about it), it was time to fully and officially ruminate on the history of the band - and this was the first time, as the quasi-official bio Close To The Edge was still more than a decade away from being published - and therefore as part of the eight-man band juggernaut the vehicle of their collective whitewash was created to accompany the retrospective boxset release YesYears.
YesYears: A Retrospective definitely benefits from being professionally produced and featuring most members past and present. Is it an accurate history of the band? Not exactly. But does it look and sound good with the benefit of interviews and archival footage? Absolutely. It's more entertaining, overall, than the other documentary (Classic Artists: Yes, released in 2007). It does have its' detractors - note this reaction from critic James Griffiths when the documentary was reissued on DVD in 2003:
This DVD rockumentary is, on first glance, a rather ghastly affair, full of wrinkled men with mullet haircuts and transatlantic English accents. But as it lumbers along, you find yourself warming to them and their story, and perhaps even joining them in hankering after those halcyon days of the early 1970s.
I find this a salient point just in terms of the doc's overall mission - by the end of it you'll understand that Yes is something more than just a band, it's an idea which can be proffered by various people at different times in different configurations. And part of that idea has to do with ambition and vision.
The tour had to be deemed important not merely because of its' status as an event, but because Yes needed to be perceived as inhabiting a continuing relevancy - and there's no better way to assert this notion than to produce a documentary which attempts to prove just that. And part of that relevancy has to do with the persistence of an idea over time. Why does a band continue to exist for 20 years? Because it's a good idea? Well sure, although there are other motivations involved as well. But the institution of Yes continued to exist because there was something compelling about what they did and how they did it. Yes evolved to the point of becoming not only a brand name, but also a meaning beyond the prosaic notion of a progressive rock band. It's also worth noting that another facet of the Union promotional cycle involved featuring Yes in MTV's continuing Rockumentary series (that portmanteau was fittingly coined by the film This Is Spinal Tap), though The Story Thus Far is condensed for the contemporary audience to half an hour.
For those who wonder if I am interrogating this document from a purely cynical perspective...well, yes and no. Yes because what else can you say about a documentary which opens with an observation from one of the two keyboard players about the seeming impossibility of such an enterprise as the 80 Dates tour? But equally no because I love this documentary. I own a copy and it has brought me hours of viewing pleasure over the years. They're all relatively young and beautiful and it engenders a nostalgia which is equal parts joy and wistful ache. But affection does not preclude critical discernment, or at least not in my case.
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To return to the notion of Yes being...whatever it is...let's consult with Wakey once more.
"Yes is...it really is music."
Or perhaps Music, even. And I do not disagree with him in the slightest, but this is evidence towards my overarching theory regarding YesYears framing Yes as an institution. Because a documentary is always an opportunity for its' members to define the character of the ensemble.
I want to pause for a moment to observe that in the opening montage we see the proof that the first show in Pensacola was professionally filmed. Perhaps not the entire show, but I think we see enough excerpts that I would assert the entire show was filmed. And I think we deserve to know what happened to that footage and why is it that an audience video is instead being resold to fans who would be willing to pay good money for something far better.
Also to note: the institution of Yes would mean that although this was the first time Trevor and Steve shared a stage, it would be far from the last...regardless of their actual feelings about the situation. But Yes is bigger than either of them, despite whatever opinions some may hold.
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| Joining forces: Pensacola, 4/9/91 |
Part of the inherent value of this documentary are things like that, tantalizing high-quality glimpses of footage we wish we could have. Another example of this is the live footage included in the video for "Lift Me Up" - which might have been from more than one show.
Speaking of the aforementioned anthem, again, the video portrays the eight-man band as if they all had a hand in it somehow. As we know, although Trevor's original demo of the song is augmented in various ways and with the assistance of producer Eddy Offord, at best it represents three or four-fifths of YesWest and that's it. But for promotional material it's as much convincing us of an actual union as it is a visual interpretation of the song.
Returning to our subject...the history of Yes unfolds in anecdotal style, with 4/5ths of the original lineup recollecting the origins in a rather broad overview, tiptoeing diplomatically through the minefield, as it were. Interestingly, Chris notes that the band did not start out with any kind of idea, rather continually moved forward under the force of their own ambition to be working, to be noticed. Bill is, in his position as The Acerbic One, baldly blunt when discussing how they constructed their early oeuvre, blithely borrowing from whatever they thought was interesting. Slowly but surely, the ideation of the institution creeps in once more, as Jon notes that with each album, "somebody got off the bus," meaning their evolution was in part defined by who was willing to continue the journey towards a more complex artistic ambition.
Another interesting element - in my estimation - is to note that every time Yes has changed guitar players (which is technically twice but three times chronologically) then the purpose of the band is remade, in a sense, and from that perspective I would assert that both Steve and Trevor are equally important to the legacy of Yes and thus entirely fitting that they were both inducted to the R&RHoF. However, the doc is slanted a bit towards presenting Steve as the embodiment of traditional Yes values.
It's around this point that the interviews are sort of interspersed between those which were conducted during one of the photo shoots, and those conducted during rehearsal in Pensacola. Portions of those interviews are also used in the Greatest Video Hits anthology, which was released in 1992. It remains a mystery to me why ATCO did not license "Lift Me Up" from Arista to include in the package.
Back to the narrative, the evolution of Yes takes an autonomous turn with Steve's integration, their creativity compelling enough to grant them some (necessary) commercial success, but more importantly sets the stage for those recordings which would forever place them in prog rock history as a singular ensemble and deservedly so. The golden era of people making music and distributing music for the sake of Music itself. It wasn't quite that idyllic, but near enough from the perspective of the increasingly antagonistic 1990s, wherein Our Heroes recall their salad days. But to illustrate how reductive this recounting is, we go through two line-ups in the first 20 minutes, with little commentary granted to Peter Banks, and Tony Kaye being rather cavalier regarding his first tenure. Their first two albums are glossed over, and the third receives a little more coverage but not as much as it deserves.
But we have to make room for what most fans consider the Classic Era, which comprises three line-ups (one of which is repeated) and six albums over a period of seven years. It is in this part of the narrative where Yes can make the best case for insisting upon the status of Institutional Excellence. Although it could be said that there's a case for giving the arguments of Serious Endeavor and Beloved Among the Masses equal weight vis a vis historical consideration.
Yes were...special. And I don't say that in a facetious kind of way. The guys make a convincing case as they state the primary take-away: Yes made the kind of music they made in that particular era because they were special. And it was a time and a place in which they were valued for that quality. But it's a bit amusing to consider that the muso discussion comes at this juncture, once the preliminaries were over. There's an emphasis on the nature of their creative process and what it wrought. This is the establishment of the Canon, and of the institution of Yes.
I had to laugh at the way Steve classified Classic Yes versus YesWest, that one is concerned with melody and the other with rhythm, and his implication is that one version is more nuanced than the other, and this reflects my comment about how the character of the band changes depending on who is playing guitar. Because otherwise you've got the same rhythm section from most of that prior period, so...but this is not the debate I came here for.
Another point in favor of the canon is the discussion of the Epic, something which can be said to be a traditional Yes value and something for which they would be judged ever after. Where are the epics?! fans would demand in later years. And why aren't they as good now?!
The persistence of an idea over time. But the idea changes as the players age.
Close To The Edge is positively dissected as an album, and I'm all for that as it's my favorite Classic Yes album. But it's interesting to note the privilege it receives in discussion and review. It's something perhaps not apprehended on the surface but something to consider in hindsight. Establishing the way in which the albums should be viewed is what they're doing here. You really have to appreciate Bill Bruford as a palate cleanser in this case, because his comments fall just short of lampoonery at times, but his unvarnished commentary is refreshing in the midst of the overall canonical reverence. It's like you can actually feel the documentary slowing down at this point. The focus shifts from history to legacy.
And then Broof departs the scene because his jazzbo soul was unfulfilled by the institution of Yes, even having ascended the first rung of serious creative achievement with them. It's funny to consider that instead of "It's not you, it's me," his argument is "Oh it's definitely you."
Enter now the most amiable person to have ever joined Yes, and honestly, to this day I believe it's really Alan White who is keeping the whole thing together somehow. By contrast, Rick Wakeman's first departure is seen as a mutiny owing to his dissatisfaction with Tales From Topographic Oceans. It's an interesting distinction because in this era nobody leaves Yes because they can't keep up. They leave because the idea no longer appeals to them.
The documentary may be the only occasion in this era, however, that Jon Anderson publicly admits to possessing a dictatorial attitude. "What the hell, I don't care," he dryly declares nearly an hour in. And why? Because he got what he wanted this time as well with the eight-headed monster, so what's the harm in admitting to a certain monomaniacal tendency, right?
It takes about half an hour to transition from that golden three-album era to the true outlier in the Yes discography, with the addition of Patrick Moraz and the creation of Relayer. Recently there's been a discussion on Yesfans regarding the work which displays the most progressive values and most participants (including myself) are apt to cite that album as the best example of Yes' willingness to experiment and travel to realms previously unknown. We even get an actual filmic transition, which signals a significant shift in Yesstory and our apprehension of it. The viewer is being educated, you see. Documentaries always possess an agenda, and this one is becoming clearer.
And part of that agenda has to do with privileging the narrative of the Union Eight, as no one else is allowed to contribute (a detail which may make the Classic Artists documentary better from a historical standpoint, as it includes everyone except Trevor, who chose not to participate). But I suppose we can amend the rule regarding transformation, for it seems obvious that Patrick wrought his own change upon the band, brief though his tenure was. And when an ensemble is insisting upon institutional excellence, it stands to reason that the people who become involved have very distinct personalities which may or may not mesh with the whole.
One thing I appreciate about the portrayal of the Relayer era is the nod to Roger Dean (and by extension Tait Towers) for providing an embodiment of the Yes aesthetic onstage, like one of the album covers come to life (or as much as was possible back in 1975). But it's mere minutes before we move on to the solo albums (Fish Out Of Water and Olias of Sunhillow, yay!) with 4/5ths of the ensemble recollecting their projects, and then to the subsequent tour. And then Rick is back in the fold, which is seen as a unifying element at the time. Going For The One was an incredibly popular album of its' time (I remember when the title track was played every hour on FM rock radio), but whether or not it's truly good is something which is still being debated by Yes fans to this day. Alan frames it as a positive experience and the accompanying studio footage indicates they were having a good time actually playing together, which is always nice to view. Granted, GFTO will always be in Jon's good books because it contains his favorite epic "Awaken." So again, the narrative is privileging particular works for canon consideration. This is followed by Rick's explanation of how he rejoined the band.
Another transition, and Jon declares that Tormato is the result of him ceding control...are we supposed to think that's a bad thing? But I suppose the greater point he's making has to do with a particular fragmentation of direction and drive, which I can certainly agree with. And now we're already up to 1978 and the ill-fated Paris sessions, which led to both Jon and Rick deciding to quit. So we're covered eleven years in a little over an hour. It's certainly an example of how a band can burn out in that amount of time, when we consider how much Yes accomplished in that decade, how many lineup changes, stylistic shifts, albums and tours, highs and lows they had experienced. I'm exhausted just thinking about it!
Can anyone imagine Yes as a power trio? It almost happened but for the entrance of the first Trevor Charles and his cohort Geoff Downes into the continuum of a new idea for an old band looking for a home. This led to another album which has been contentious for fans, the aptly-named Drama. In the 1980s, Yes took various chances with what fans would accept and most of them paid off, I would say. But all of them caused debate and backlash to varying degrees. The character of evolution is one of those institutional values which I think is most important overall to the band itself. Steve and Alan throw Chris under the bus in terms of his desire to make it all work, and I can see both sides. Yes, it was likely a nightmare for Trevor Horn to find himself thrust into this spotlight he wasn't fully prepared for, but on the other hand, the Show must go on, and Chris likely saw that as his actual job to ensure it would. But the center could not hold...which led to Steve deciding to go off with Geoff and start a whole other band. A band that the second Trevor Charles was also pressured to join.
(It's just kind of weird, isn't it? All these coincidences...)
Speaking of Our Trev, it's now time for the birth of YesWest and not a moment too soon! I know any number of Rabinites have fast-forwarded to his appearance in this panoply. There are various versions regarding how it happened, and I'm not fussed about it - it depends on who, what, where and when - but then Chris attempts to frame Tony's return as a redressed slight and...I always laugh at that explanation, I can't help it. Those of you who have listened to my appearance on Have You SEEN This? know what I mean by this because Chris' choice of Tony was entirely political and strategical. And then we get to Jon's return and it's all an equivocated condensed sequence of events. Just like with the current situation, we're supposed to think it was just all Meant To Be and that is a load of horseshit. But let's not have the truth get in the way of Yesstory, right? Considering how 90125 is such a landmark, again, it's all a bit glossed-over, although there's some interesting comments from Trevor about his process and how it changed over time due to collaborating with Chris specifically. The difficulties of recording Big Generator are also discussed by Trevor, Chris and Alan, and Trevor's hesitancy in expressing his point is rather telling.
It's really interesting that at the time of filming the doc, Trevor admits he and Jon were also fighting during recording. When I discussed the making of the album with Trevor last year, he said the real problem was the fighting between Jon and Chris. And I've always wondered why, when Jon was so unhappy and alienated he had to go off and form another version of Yes, would he then seek out Trevor as his savior for the follow-up to ABWH?
Because he wouldn't...unless he had been told that there was greater success to be had if he was the one who united the warring factions into a band for the ages. And how to do it? To start with, by admitting that the Whiz Kid knew he was doing all along. Whether Jon actually believed it or not.
Back to the (then) present, with discussion of Can't Look Away and one of the true values of this document - excerpts from the video for STHOT. Again, it's interesting to me that he frames the club tour as a battle between the interests of management and the desires of the record company - who naturally would want their product promoted in the traditional manner. As I've noted previously I think it would have been more strategic for Trevor to appear on an arena tour with another artist, but I imagine he wouldn't have stood for not being the headliner, thus the club tour. So it would seem to me that perhaps Tony D. and Alex weren't objecting to the notion of touring, but rather the specific circumstances of touring that Trevor was insisting upon because it didn't make sense to them from a business perspective. He notes they lost money on the tour and I would say it was due to the overhead of hauling all that equipment around for such a short period of time. But it sounded great, and that's what matters...or one supposes, anyway.
Jon's departure and ABWH are not included in this narrative, and it concludes at almost the 90-minute mark so we can enjoy the fun and wacky behind-the-scenes hijinks section. I mean, Jon had a solo career too as well as putting together his other Yes and, well, you're not gonna hear about it here. Because to attempt to explain it rather than fob it off as just another side project - which is essentially what Alan does in his last interview section - is to avoid acknowledging what a schism it caused from both a business and personal perspective. We have to believe they are happy to be doing this, because the tour has to succeed, everything is connected to this event writ worldwide. And it's charming, I won't deny it, I enjoy it even as it's mostly posturing. Everyone with the exception of Bill is disingenuous to some degree. As with most institutions, there's a disconnect between how they wish to be apprehended by the public and how they actually function on a day-to-day level. But for an extended period of time we are viewing the personalities/personas and putting human faces on the monolith which makes us care about it that much more, as well as instilling an appreciation for the sheer scale and effort behind the tour.
(And as always: point a camera at Trevor and he will not fail to be entertaining.)
To underscore the glory of the idea we are treated to an excerpt from Denver of the band performing "Awaken." Specifically the "master of images" section which is quite transcendent, and I say that as someone who's not much of a fan of that particular epic. Then, fade-out and back into a section where everyone muses on their formative years, crafted from a montage of interview, rehearsal, and performance footage. For me, this is one of the most interesting sections in that it comes off less pandering even as we're meant to understand that Yes will always be inhabited by people who possessed a sheer passion for music seemingly from birth. But I like knowing how music has shaped a musician's life, what their motivations were, and are, for following this particular path.
The last ten minutes or so is devoted to more behind-the-scenes footage and a quote from Jon that, again, makes me laugh.
"I've always felt that it would be a good idea, you know, you get about eight people who are really talented playing together, you can finish it with a very stylized idea. And I think it's like the evolution of a band, if it does it properly and there's a spirit within the band to want to do it, and it's done for the main reason, which is music."
(See how that dovetails nicely with what Rick said at the beginning?)
This is followed by Trevor:
"And we can have a great time doing it, you know, have a good time and at the end of it see what we wanna do, if anything. I think that's the way to approach it. I think it's dishonest to say 'Yeah in five years we'll still be going strong!' (shrugs) Who knows."
...and that, to me, parallels what both would be saying a year later at the end of the tour. The optimism of The Big Idea versus the pragmatism of Sometimes People In Yes Remember That They're Actually In Yes.
But I can see where many fans, having watched this documentary, wanted to believe in the future Jon was attempting to create. Couldn't help but believe it because that's what was sold to all of us. We then see the band assembling to make that first grand entrance in Pensacola as the audience gathers eagerly and expectantly...look, we made it happen. And if we made this happen, just think about what else we could do.
It ends with more footage from Denver, specifically the best version of "Shock To The System" (no offense to Jimmy Haun, but the live version is so much more compelling than the studio track even as Trevor didn't particularly enjoy playing it by his own admission) to remind us...oh yeah, there's a new album out! I think it's one of the most convincing arguments as to why the Denver show should have been officially released 30 years ago, or thereabouts. It's exciting, and fun, and amazing to watch these eight people play this music together.
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| #RELEASETHEDENVERSHOW |
Rick serves as the bookending commentator, and I think he would have been willing to give himself to the idea, at least for a while, but it's clear he seemed enthusiastic for the tour at the very least. But his observation about Yes being whoever is in the band at that time is a bit of institutional lore which has been quoted by fans ever since. But most everyone contributes to this as well, including Alan's classic comment about Yes being a band which looks over the horizon into the future and Rick's regarding the continuation of Yes in a classical historical sense.
Final bows, in full triumph. Or at least that's how it appears...
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But I know what you've been thinking this whole time: "Humble Narrator, this documentary wasn't released until the tour was mostly over! How can you make an argument for what we're supposed to be thinking about the tour when the primary piece of propaganda was essentially posthumous?!"
And yeah, I get it. But I believe it creates an expectation and an apprehension which was desired, again, in terms of granting Yes the status of an institution which was reckoned to be important for the enterprise moving forward into the '90s. Fans' understanding and appreciation of the Union Eight has been shaped just as much by that propaganda as by actual experience. After all, think about who made it into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame - if a voting member did nothing more than view YesYears: A Retrospective and, say, the Denver performance from that tour, it might well be enough evidence to arrive at a similar conclusion.
Jon wanted an eight-man band, or at least he believed he did. As he emphatically stated in 1992 as 80 Dates was coming to its' end: "The group is eight people, and that's it, that's the story." I believe he should have realized what an untenable idea that was beyond considerations of a special event, but Jon being Jon means that he's the idea guy, and to be fair it had served him well over the years, mostly.
Except this wasn't his idea to be begin with.
This tour was special, it was entertaining for fans and it imbued them with renewed love for their band, I would imagine most people had no idea at the time of the overall agendas at work. I certainly didn't when I attended the show at the Los Angeles Forum in May of '91. So while acknowledgement in the form of archive releases provides the desired nostalgia, presenting it at a characteristically amateurish level makes me (and others, I would imagine) desire to penetrate deeper into the context of the event itself and why it has come to this, in a manner of speaking.
Besides its' status as a event, this whole scheme - Union and the 80 Dates tour - is where Yes break off from the historical landmass it had inhabited for twenty years: ever-evolving, a band which couldn't keep a stable lineup for more than 2-3 years at a time, but also a band capable of engaging, creative, dynamic music and stagecraft which had garnered a devoutly loyal worldwide fandom and a fair amount of commercial success. In part this break was related to the severing of their relationship with ATCO/Atlantic, the label Yes had been affiliated with for their entire career. There is everything which came before this period, and everything after. And nothing would be quite as special ever again save, perhaps, the reunion of the Classic Era lineup in 2004 for the 35th Anniversary tour of North America and Western Europe. When you choose events and relevancy over chemistry and audacity...it will pay off in the short-term, but not forever. Ever after they would be continually acknowledging their legacy and attempting new expression, but everyone - including the band - would increasingly look back to past glories.
When I say that the 80 Dates tour had its' own role in the evolution of modern touring philosophy, that's partly what I mean: that tour was about nostalgia, and nostalgia became a really easy way to make money in the touring marketplace for many artists.
But it did establish Yes as an institution, and it has continued because that's what institutions do. Time and perseverance are their own justifications. It's not about whether a band ages well so much as whether their legacy does. And luckily for Yes, they proved they are an institution worthy of loyalty to the storied past they presented to all of us. Including a portion of that history which, no matter the motivations behind it, was a shining moment to be treasured.
