of Yes
US Cellular Coliseum
Bloomington, IL
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Section Floor Center, Row 3, Seat 5
$85
We had to go from Milwaukee to Bloomington. It is normally an easy drive. The directions say it will take 3 1/2 hours, and I find I-39 an easy interstate to drive on. I drove this whole distance without a break on another trip.
But this was now our fourth winter in a row of traveling to a show and dealing with snow.
Roy drove. The roads weren't bad, but visibility was. We were both tense from being hyper-aware of the surroundings. Roy wasn't driving much slower, but we had to take a number of breaks to get away from the strain of driving. We had plans to meet some people from the Yesfans website at 5, but we were still just getting off the highway to our hotel. I didn't know if we should skip dinner and just rest up for the show or if the socializing would do us some good. It wasn't going to be a big group of people, which probably would have kept us away. Roy lay down for a little bit at the hotel while I got directions and freshened up.
The dinner was nice. It was at a little bar/restaurant near the venue that served mostly sandwiches. I tried to get something somewhat healthy. I have a huge circle of friends that are Yes fans, and for a long time, I was less interested in meeting new fans than having time to catch up with my friends. But none of them were coming to this show and I'm new to the Yesfans site, so we ventured out to eat with new people. All the people from Yesfans were really friendly. They held off on ordering until we got there. There were Mike and his wife Pat, who are from the St. Louis suburbs, Gary, and Larry. Scott YesChef, who we've known for years, was also there. I had to bring the bad news to the table when I told Scott about Zoey's passing. But the rest of the conversation was nice. Everyone was excited about the show. Gary wanted to be surprised there, so we couldn't talk about the songs. We all talked about the first time we got to see Yes live. Everyone else beat me by a dozen or more years. There were no uncomfortable silences or trying to fill the space and everyone was a good listener as well as a talker. I'm glad we were able to make it.
After dinner, we headed over to the coliseum. I didn't know what the crowd would be like. Why is Yes playing Bloomington anyway? It's an area that doesn't have a huge population, and I don't think Yes has much visibility among the younger people there in the college town. Before I left on this trip, I saw that 6th row floor seats were still available, and cheaper seats were on sale two-for-one. When Roy and I got down to our seats, we saw there were only about eight rows of seats on the floor, and 6 sections of tiered seating - less than even listed on the venue's seating chart as "theater layout". I guess some people who bought tickets didn't show up because of the snow. The seats on either side of us were unused.
We had third row tickets right in front of Squire. One thing that was really nice was the amount of room between the rows. We were a decent amount of space back from the people in the second row. It really helped with potential tall-people-in-front-of-me siteline problems, and it also made me feel like I had a lot of personal space. I can get a little claustrophobic sometimes, and this helped to relax me. Everything at this show was going to be alright.
This show just put me in my happy place. I just felt joyful the whole time. I was bopping along in my seat all night. Gary from dinner had bought front row seats from someone at Yesfans and was clearly enjoying it. He stood up and beckoned the people behind him to stand during All Good People, so we all got to get up for that. We also got a kick out of him standing up to play with the dry ice drifting off the stage during Close to the Edge, only to have an usher come over and have him move back away from the stage. I had the option to buy those same tickets. I passed on it, but it added to the fun to see him enjoy those seats so much.
Chris Squire made a comment about this being an intimate show. I heard that less than 1000 seats had been sold. I can't help but wonder if there was a better fitting venue in the area, something that would be nicer and smaller. But I thought the sound was excellent for an arena and I liked how much personal space I had.
I love sitting in front of Chris. I never did make eye contact with him, or anyone else in the band, or notice them recognizing me. Chris is such a performer, and being so close to him makes me really focus on his bass playing and backing vocals. I was singing along to his "float your climb" in And You And I and the "coil their said amazement of her story" harmony parts in Close to the Edge. Those backing vocals that he and Steve do were so prominent this time around. I could see Alan well from this seat also. In the other shows, his head was obscured by cymbals, and I could only see him when he was standing up. I barely paid attention to Oliver. He was very stoic and serious looking, not engaging the audience at all.
Steve Howe did All's a Chord from The Steve Howe Album as his first solo piece. I recognized the melody, but I couldn't place it. The song originally had vocals, but he performed it instrumentally. It really sounded nice. Once he announced it, it was like of course, that's what it was.
Steve introduced Starship Trooper as a quintessential Yes song. The crowd stood up this time without Alan's prompting. One thing that frustrated me about Starship Trooper was the harmonies during the "ah ah" part. I remember back on the Masterworks tour, Jon sang it with Igor doing the high harmony parts. This time, Benoit saing it, and Oliver played a keyboard part to harmonize. I missed the vocals there. The crowd stayed standing after the band left the stage. I was surprised when Yes came back on and started playing Roundabout. We could even see Alan singing harmony on it, and I never noticed him doing that before. In Milwaukee, they had played Owner as the first encore. No Owner this night. The show ended right at 10, so I wondered if there was a curfew issue.
We talked to Gary again after the show and bumped into Kevin's friend Greg, whom I had met the night before. We had a bit of luck coming into the venue - we parked in a covered garage and on our way to the entrance walked past the "artist entrance" just as a security guard was mentioning it to some other audience members. Roy and I went back there. We were joined by two other guys. It was cold, but only snowing lightly at this point. I mainly wanted to get my tour poster signed, but I didn't want to bring it out in this weather. We waited for about a half hour outside. One security guard told us the band had left right after the show, but I know they usually stick around for awhile, and I saw their van. We asked another guard, and he told us they were still there and it wouldn't be long.
It seems intimate to only have a few people waiting for autographs, but it didn't work out too well. Chris came out first. I asked him to sign something for me. He was very friendly, even asked what my name was, which he had never done before. He signed my Going for the One CD sleeve "To Rhea, Love, Chris Squire". I asked him if they could please play Parallels at the next show. Chris explained that there were complaints the show was getting too long and that it was a tough song to sing. While we were talking to Chris, Oliver, Benoit, and Alan walked past us and went into the van. I can hardly fault them, it was cold and snowing outside, and they weren't going to wait around to see if we needed anything! So nice of Chris to stay outside for a few extra minutes to make some fans happy.
When Chris had moved on to the other fans, I saw that someone was still standing outside the van. It was Oliver Wakeman. I walked over. Oliver saw me and asked if I was coming to have Alan sign something for me. I said, actually, I have (Oliver's) 3 Ages of Magick with me and I was hoping he could sign it for me. He seemed so happy to see his own CD, like I was doing him a favor. He saw that I did have the White CD sleeve in my pile of stuff, so he took my pen and CD cover into the van for Alan to sign, and then brought it back out to me.
Bloomington didn't have many nice hotels, and I made a guess of where Yes was staying. The band members are usually cool about people coming to their hotel and hanging out in the bar. Benoit saw us and walked over to talk to us. He recognized us from the show and said he wanted to talk to us. He said if he forgot the words to any of the songs, he'd know them by looking at me singing along! That's a nice first impression to make, in both directions.
Benoit chatted with Roy and me for a good ten minutes. We talked about how the tour's gone so far, how long we've been Yes fans, downloading recordings, why Bloomington had such a low turnout, how excited we were for a show in our own neighborhood in St. Louis. He said they try to keep the shows at the same quality level from night to night, even when there's a disappointing turnout, but I told him I enjoyed this night's show better than Milwaukee's. We also talked about St. Louis for a bit too. Yes did not have a show scheduled for the next night. Usually, they'd travel to the next city on their off-day, so they'd have some extra time in St. Louis. Benoit said he liked to do sight-seeing, but not museums, so we told him about the Arch and that he couldn't miss spotting it when they were arriving in the city. I was tickled after the St. Louis show when I got to talk to Benoit again, and he told me they went to the top of the Arch. High expectations and little windows, he said.
This was a longer conversation than I'd ever had with Jon or any of the other current band members. I can't believe how open and friendly this guy is.
I had joked to Roy that I was going to bring up Parallels to each band member I got to speak with. I didn't have to here. Benoit brought it up as a song they had dropped. "I know, and I was really looking forward to that one," I replied. Benoit mentioned that the band was talking about it, actually talking about my request to Chris earlier that night. Benoit brought Roy and me back to talk to the rest of the band; everyone but Steve was there. I'm afraid that when I should have been gracious, I pressed too hard. My goodness, these are my idols here. Everyone shook our hands as we left and were so friendly, it was just surreal. I wondered afterwards if I handled it well.
Roy and I joked later that we'll always have Bloomington. We got our Yes back that night.
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