State of Independence

Jon Anderson and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra
Liza Grossman, Music Director
Severance Hall
Cleveland, OH
Monday, May 24, 2010
Section 200, Row A, Seat 210
$42


Jon Anderson had just finished the first song in the world premiere of his new four-piece suite. Roy turned to me and said "Wow." We had managed to not only get seats in the front row, but directly in front of Jon. Jon was looking for audience reaction and saw our exchange. "Wow?", Jon made eye contact with Roy and mouthed this to him. Roy smiled and gave our hero a thumbs-up.

This is the second time we've seen Jon after his illness in 2008. We saw his first show back, last year in California. I wanted to be there to show my support for Jon. He's been doing more one-man shows, but this was something different. He was playing with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra in Cleveland, playing his songs with a full orchestra and choir. We saw him with the Youth Orchestra once before, in 2004. It remains one of my favorite concert experiences, and we jumped at the chance to go to this one.

The trip itself took a couple changes. The show was on a Monday, and we originally booked a flight coming in on Sunday night. The venue and our hotel were in the University Circle area of Cleveland, home to colleges and a number of museums. We'd have time to be tourists. Then, I found out the finale of Lost would be airing that Sunday night, and I had to watch that live. We changed our flight to fly out Monday morning. It led to two late nights of entertainment and two early mornings of flights. Plus, our flight on Monday was delayed, so we got even less time to sightsee in Cleveland.

We got together with my friend Jerry and his new girlfriend Vicki at the hotel, and then we went to dinner at a place next door to catch up and get acquainted. The venue was a classy one this time, the home of the Cleveland Orchestra. Jon deserves it; he should aways get to play places this nice. It was just a short walk from the hotel. I bought a bottle of water to smuggle into the auditorium. We didn't even see the merchandise or the artwork on display.

I jokingly told Jerry and Vicki that Roy's and my seats were "right in front of Jon". I didn't realize it until we found that seats that we were, indeed, right in front of his microphone stand. Jon's wife Jane had a seat in the second row right behind Roy. I've had seats in the front row for Jon before, but never quite this close. He was set up right by the edge of the stage. Standing up, we could have touched his microphone stand. I stood up and waved to Jerry, so he could see exactly where I was sitting.

The show got off to a wonderful start with Starship Trooper and Long Distance Runaround. Trooper was reworked somewhat. I looked back to see if Jane was going to stand up to applaud. I followed her lead and gave Trooper a standing ovation. We all applauded for a long time. There was another ovation for Long Distance Runaround.

In Jon's solo shows, he's only been doing the Life Seeker part of Starship Trooper, changing it almost to a verse-chorus-verse structure. The orchestra played that part, but also the instrumental Wurm. I wondered if he dropped the "Loneliness is a power that we possess" lyrics because they were Chris Squire's. Later on, Jerry pointed out that he also left out the "you and you may follow" part. His voice may not be strong enough to hold the note on "follow".

Regardless, the orchestra sounded wonderful and Jon sounded even wonderful-er. This concert hall is built for acoustics and the orchestra just washed over us towards the finale of Starship Trooper. Jon sounded and looked much stronger than he had last year. We had a small speaker near us carrying Jon's voice and guitar and the choir. I joked later on that this was the "QPR mix", since we could hear Jon's guitar high in the mix.

Jon did a couple more unreleased songs, some that I recognized from other shows, some that I heard for the first time this night. The song Big Buddha (which used to be called This Is or The Buddha Song) sounded particularly good with the choir. We heard probably the best version of the song Show Me that I've heard, but I still wasn't sure we needed to hear it again.

The big deal in the first half of the set was the premiere of the four-song set. Jon had written it for orchestra and choir, so we were going to hear it exactly as conceived. The four parts were Children Yet to Come, Earth Singing, Breathing, and Love is All. Roy's reaction might have been "Wow", but for me, the performance could have been better. Jon was reading the lyrics right off his lyric sheet, and sometimes he sang towards the lyrics rather than into the microphone. He told the audience he was so excited by the musicians on stage that he wasn't paying enough attention to his own part. I want to hear it again before making any judgements.

During intermission, Jerry and Vicki came up to our seats and compared notes. This was Vicki's first time seeing Jon live, and what a show to see. Roy pointed out some of the musicians who looked like they were really enjoying performing this music. (I had eyes only for Jon.) If anything the second half of the show was even more impressive than the first.

Someone named "Warciple" took this picture and posted it online. He kindly gave me permission to use it in the blog. It looks like this was taken during the intermission. You can see me standing right in front of my seat with my back to the stage, in the bottom right corner of the photo.

The second set opened with a beautiful And You And I. It had more magic than the version done by the current line-up of Yes. I've enjoyed almost all of the shows I've seen by the new line-up, but this just highlighted what they are missing. Some years ago, I would have said I was tired of hearing this song live, but then I fell in love with it over again.

The next new song was called Earth and Peace, and it was my favorite of the new pieces. I think Jon's singing was really great, showing off that beautiful voice.

The high point of the whole show was State of Independence. Liza Grossman, the conductor and music director, asked to give the introduction. She mentioned how great this song was at the previous Contemporary Youth Orchestra and how the theme of independence relating to the youth orchestra and this performance. The event was named "State of Independence". It was a great performance. Liza also gave Jon a queue during the song. Jon held his microphone up to the lead violinist for a short solo during the song. And afterward, Jon looked over at Roy, and gave Roy a thumb's up! He knew this was a great one.

The only nitpick I had with it was that Jon got some of the lyrics wrong. It's hard when I'm singing along with Jon and suddenly, I'm not in sync anymore. It pulls me out of the song. (This happened with Owner of a Lonely Heart in the first half too.) Still, this sounds powerful with the orchestra behind him.

We heard some other great songs too. Your Move/All Good People, Roundabout, Change We Must, Soon. Jon told us to sing along, but not to stand up, because we were in such a fancy venue. I was bopping along in my seat to Roundabout. There were multiple cameramen out there, filming this for eventual release. I noticed one of the cameras aimed at our row while I was singing and dancing in my seat. I tried not to react to it. I wonder if I'll end up in the final release?!

The encore was additional versions of Starship Trooper and State of Independence. It was great hearing them again. I guess for a classical thing like this with all the arrangements needing to be written out and everything needing to be rehearsed, they can't have "extra" songs to play during the encore. Jon got the words right this time, but Roy thinks the violin solo was better during the first performance.

We met up with Jerry and Vicki again. Vicki says she understands us following Jon and Yes around now. We talked for quite a while, and then I remembered I wanted to buy a t-shirt and a poster. I was sure that the merchandise booth would be closed by now, but Roy told me to check anyway. I was happy to be wrong! I made my purchases.

I've been able to meet Jon Anderson at a number of his shows. Sometimes he does meet-and-greet after the show, and sometimes he talks to fans waiting outside. This was a big building, and we had no idea where to wait or how long it would be. I felt like I lost an opportunity here, but I agreed that it was fruitless to hang around. We all walked back to the hotel and hung out in the lounge for another hour. Jerry showed us his iPad. We talked about this show, other shows we had seen, and how lucky we were to be part of this world.