Rhea's 2004 Jon Anderson weekend Pt 3

Jon Anderson
Count Basie Theater
Red Bank, NJ
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Section Orchestra Left, Row B, Seat 11
$50

One of the hidden expenses of traveling is eating out every meal. We got lucky on Sunday - my parents took us out to brunch and we had dinner at a friend's house in New Jersey. It would have been a fun day even without the concert. The timing was a bit tight. We checked into our hotel right at 7, and then drove a couple blocks to the theater. If there had been any traffic, we might have been late.

This evening's venue was the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey. It seemed similar to the Keswick, being an older theater in the downtown of a small town. It could use some renovating - most of the seats had ripped fabric and the ornate decorations on the walls had cracks. Still had lots of charm and is so much nicer than going to a smoky club for a concert like this.

We stopped to talk to more friends in the lobby before the show. A group of us went to all three weekend shows, but we traveled separately and only caught up at the shows themselves. We decided to leave the auditorium and meet up in the autograph line early if Jon decided to play Owner as an encore again. One friend handed Roy two unmarked CDRs. On our ride back to the airport the next morning, we put them in and discovered it was a recording of the night before's show. Sweet.

This show was similar to the Glenside show, but with fewer mistakes. Jon did have some trouble with State of Independence, but he pulled it together. Yours Is No Disgrace and Richard were impressive all three nights. What I remember most about the performance were the unplanned moments. One of the questions was a request for Jon to sing Amazing Grace. He sang it unaccompanied and with no effects on his microphone. This man's voice is gorgeous. It made me wish he did more a capella.

One guy in the audience kept yelling for A Venture. It was getting on my nerves, but there was a big payoff for it. Towards the end of the show, Jon sang the first line. I was surprised that he remembered it after all these years. Was this the first ever performance of any bit of A Venture?

The other thing that stands out is little tidbits about Yes that Jon mentioned. Come to think of it, I'm not sure which night he told us these things, but I think it was Sunday. Jon said that Yes was talking about doing On the Silent Wings of Freedom this year. There was a good crowd response, and then Jon said that he should give all of us Chris Squire's phone number, to talk him into it. See, I thought that Chris would have been the one to want this song, since he plays a bit of it in his solo and it's so bass-y. Jon also made a little poke at Chris' falling down on one knee act during The Fish. The other interesting thing is that Steve Howe doesn't like the harp section of Awaken.

We were in the front row again, this time off to the side on the left audience section. During the intermission, I met up with YesSwap and progcookies members Fred and Stephen. I didn't know how I was going to find them, but they met up with my friend Carrie, so she pulled me over to their group. Fred and Stephen had identical seats to me, but on the right side. It's nice to put faces and voices to names, even though we didn't have a lot of time to talk.

It was time for the encore. Jon said he was going to do the same song as the night before, but last night's version was "silly". We got up and walked towards the back of the theater. I found that I couldn't actually leave the room while Jon was on stage. So Roy and I watched it from the back. It really wasn't as bad as Saturday night's, but I couldn't take the whole karaoke thing seriously.

There were already quite a few people in the autograph line. I had gotten everything signed that I brought with me, but I can't pass up an opportunity to talk to Jon. I ended up getting my ticket stub signed. I told Jon I sometimes wished I could quit my job and just go to all of his concerts. He said he'd see us in the spring.

I wasn't ready to leave yet. Roy and I hung out in the lobby, talking to friends and watching Jon sign autographs. When Jon was getting ready to leave, I approached him again and wished him good luck for the rest of the tour. Roy and I had talked a little about flying down to Florida the next weekend for more shows, but it looked like this was going to be it. The first show was my favorite, and had a real special quality to it, but my favorite overall moment was Amazing Grace the last night.

There's a little post script to this story. We stayed at a hotel that was listed on the venue's website. It was a nice place, and only a few blocks away. We went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast the next morning, and Roy was wearing a Yes sweatshirt. The host asked if we were with the Andersons. They didn't come to the restaurant while we were there, and I didn't see them anywhere else in the hotel.