Bob Rossney: May 2008 Archives
David Hartwell famously observed that the golden age of science fiction is twelve. There comes a point in one's life where it becomes extremely difficult to love certain things unironically. The narrow perspective of youth and inexperience makes beacons out of things that are merely shiny. You can't recognize meretriciousness when you haven't tasted it yet.
But then you learn a little more about the world, get burned once or twice, live a little, and you start to see what things are really like. This is a wonderful and necessary experience, because you develop a new, deeper, truer appreciation for the things in life that are genuine and sustaining. But you lose some things along the way.
And so it happens that Yes passes out of your life.
Even when I thought Yes was great, which I did, it was hard for me to find much that was admirable in Jon Anderson. The high voice: annoying. The fantastically stupid lyrics: annoying. And his whole mystical spirit-child persona, all unicorns and no fucking, was like what Stevie Nicks might have been like if she found sex icky.
I never dreamed I'd find something that turned me around completely on the subject of Jon Anderson. But here it is.
I had tears in my eyes watching this. It is so totally, brilliantly, unironically great. Okay, the backup singers are a little flat. The sound is muddy, and the image isn't all it could be. It doesn't matter.
They're kids. The keyboard player (yes! he's wearing a cape!) is better at playing glissandos than he is at shaving. They do this far better than you would believe possible, and they do it with a kind of love and enthusiasm that the band itself hasn't been able to muster for thirty years. I've watched it start to finish twice and it's just outstanding.
And it could never have happened if Jon Anderson didn't turn out to have qualities that are wholly admirable, like generosity, enthusiasm, kindness, and a complete lack of pretense. (It's very hard to imagine Peter Gabriel or Robert Fripp, say, doing anything this. Or Lou Reed, for that matter.)
From the fabulous Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey, I present to you the Paul Green School of Rock Omega All-Stars, with Jon Anderson singing lead, performing, in its nutty entirety, all of "Close to the Edge". Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.
There's a wonderful moment in part 2, at about 5:20 where the keyboard player switches over from the pompous dramatic pipe organ to the silly mini-Moog-like lead, and the person taping this (a parent, I'd bet) has zoomed in, and at the edge of the frame you can see one of the backup singers, and she's cracking up. And it's completely cool.
This is all progressive rock really ever needed: to be comfortable with the fact that from time to time girls are going to laugh at it.
But then you learn a little more about the world, get burned once or twice, live a little, and you start to see what things are really like. This is a wonderful and necessary experience, because you develop a new, deeper, truer appreciation for the things in life that are genuine and sustaining. But you lose some things along the way.
And so it happens that Yes passes out of your life.
Even when I thought Yes was great, which I did, it was hard for me to find much that was admirable in Jon Anderson. The high voice: annoying. The fantastically stupid lyrics: annoying. And his whole mystical spirit-child persona, all unicorns and no fucking, was like what Stevie Nicks might have been like if she found sex icky.
I never dreamed I'd find something that turned me around completely on the subject of Jon Anderson. But here it is.
I had tears in my eyes watching this. It is so totally, brilliantly, unironically great. Okay, the backup singers are a little flat. The sound is muddy, and the image isn't all it could be. It doesn't matter.
They're kids. The keyboard player (yes! he's wearing a cape!) is better at playing glissandos than he is at shaving. They do this far better than you would believe possible, and they do it with a kind of love and enthusiasm that the band itself hasn't been able to muster for thirty years. I've watched it start to finish twice and it's just outstanding.
And it could never have happened if Jon Anderson didn't turn out to have qualities that are wholly admirable, like generosity, enthusiasm, kindness, and a complete lack of pretense. (It's very hard to imagine Peter Gabriel or Robert Fripp, say, doing anything this. Or Lou Reed, for that matter.)
From the fabulous Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey, I present to you the Paul Green School of Rock Omega All-Stars, with Jon Anderson singing lead, performing, in its nutty entirety, all of "Close to the Edge". Part 1 is here, and part 2 is here.
There's a wonderful moment in part 2, at about 5:20 where the keyboard player switches over from the pompous dramatic pipe organ to the silly mini-Moog-like lead, and the person taping this (a parent, I'd bet) has zoomed in, and at the edge of the frame you can see one of the backup singers, and she's cracking up. And it's completely cool.
This is all progressive rock really ever needed: to be comfortable with the fact that from time to time girls are going to laugh at it.
