Sep 21: Sunday night at the London Palladium

Sunday 20th 

London Palladium

I don't think I've been to the Palladium before.

Jon Anderson has been touring with the Band Geeks for quite a while within the USA, but this is their first tour of the UK.

Last night they reached London and the Palladium: a wonderful old theatre with great acoustics and sight lines. I was up in the Royal Circle.

The evening was excellent. 

The band were great, and Jon's voice was as True as ever... timbre, range, accuracy and emotion. They started with 'Close to the Edge' and added 'And You and I' and 'Awaken' and the twists and turns of 'Perpetual Change'.

I'd heard of "10 standing ovations"... which was a little performative from some people.... 

I'd previously seen Yes (with all the classic members), the Union shows at Wembley when various versions got together, Anderson Bruford Wakeman and Howe several times, 'Drama' era Yes and various other solo shows....

Here's a review from someone else who was there...

And here's an official live video of 'And You and I'...

I also appreciated the staff who were stopping people from videoing... just watch the show with your eyes... Public Service Broadcasting definitely have this right... I hope they go back to showing this.

Here's 'Geoffrey went too far"....

Feb 22: U is for U:K

An alphabet of bands and artists as a series for the next 26 days. These were selected by the Spotify algorithm.

U:K is a short-lived 'supergroup' of technically proficient musicians. They recorded several albums including a live one.

Japan had more visits by Jobson and crew than the country they were named after. The band had a classic line-up, although in recent concerts, only two were from the original.

This features the late, great John Wetton on bass and vocals. He also played with Asia - which he founded. Previous bands included Family, King Crimson, Roxy Music, 

The guitarist was the late, great Allan Holdsworth, a pioneer of guitar synthesisers.

The drummer was originally Bill Bruford, who also played with Yes and Genesis as well as Earthworks. He retired a few years ago, but not for long. I've seen him play live a number of times with both of those bands.

On the clip below, the drums are played by multi-instrumentalist Marco Minnemann is an awesome drummer who is capable of incredible rhythmic patterns in complex time-signatures. I remember watching a clip of him auditioning for Dream Theater.

The big draw for me is Eddie Jobson. He is a multi-instrumentalist, classically trained and a phenomenon, and will appear elsewhere on the blog.

Here they are playing one of my favourites of theirs.

And this has just been added to YouTube because Eddie is going to be performing live for the first time in some years.

It's a live performance of 'Carrying no Cross'.

From Eddie Jobson's "Four Decades" solo concert in 2013, with special guests John Wetton and Marco Minnemann. 

Other guests appearing at the concert included Sonja Kristina (Curved Air), Alex Machacek (U.K.), Aaron Lippert (UKZ) and Ric Fierabracci performing a broad range of music from Jobson's forty-year career.

I have this concert on CD.