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Yes 50 Fan Convention – 328

Dave Watkinson, Roger Dean and Jerry Ewing
Dave Watkinson, Roger Dean and Jerry Ewing

Produced by Robert Nasir, Jeffrey Crecelius, Wayne Hall, Preston Frazier and Bill Govier

This week I feed back from the amazing YES50 Fan Convention organised by Brian Neeson and Dave Watkinson. It was a fantastic day and I’ve tried to capture some of it to give you an idea of how it all went if you were unable to go.

  • Who turned up?
  • Who played?
  • What was the atmosphere like?

Listen to the episode then let us know what you think!

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Tour clips by permission of the wonderful http://www.londonrocktour.com/

Upload your photos and videos from the event here:

http://yes50fanconvention.com/

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Show notes and links

Get your Yes 50th Anniversary free pass here

Join the 50th Anniversary Facebook group here


Yes Music PodcastYMP patrons:

Robert Nasir | Jeffrey Crecelius | Preston Frazier | Bill Govier | Wayne Hall |

Joseph Cottrell | Michael O’Connor | Paul Tomei | Geoffrey Mason | Lobate Scarp | Fergus Cubbage | Steve Dill | Steve Scott

Paul Wilson | Jamie McQuinn | Miguel Falcão | Ken Fuller | David Pannell | Brian Sullivan | Joost Doesburg | Jeremy North | Tim Stannard | David Watkinson | Steve Roehr | Geoff Baillie | William Hayes | Terence Sadler | Neal Kaforey | Simon Barrow | Dave Owen |

Robert


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Theme music

The music I use is the last movement of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. This has been used as introduction music at many Yes concerts. My theme music is not take from a live concert – I put it together from the following two creative commons sources: thanvannispen and archive.org

18 replies on “Yes 50 Fan Convention – 328”

Very interesting to actually see the real places up close like you did. Hard to believe that they came so far in really such a short time. Being able to meet all of those wonderful people amazing
The whole Yes family are truly amazing perhaps some day in the not to distance future they will all be able to put their feelings aside and come together all players past and present that are still with us to be able to make that wonderful sound called Yes. Sweet Dreams ……

Thanks Paul. What a wonderful time to be a Yes fan! As you say, we can keep hoping for a reconciliation…

Regarding Roger Dean’s apologizing to you, here’s the story: Roger & me are old friends, going back to first meeting on the Yes ’76 tour at their Cleveland concert. On the Cruise to the Edge in Feb. ’17, we were eating lunch together and he asked me if I was aware of the Yes Music Podcast, and if it was legit, professional. As you’d expect, he uses careful consideration as to whom he talks to if being recorded for radio, tv or online. I said yes, I listened every week. He said he’s been asked to guest. I told him I thought it was a great idea and that he should, and that I hoped to appear as well regarding my 40+ years connection to Yes. I suggested he listen to some of the previous podcasts. So his comment, “allegedly,” was a peek at his initial doubt re the show, and a great example of his wonderful dry sense of humor!

Thanks Doug. I imagined it was something like that! Hope you have both of you on the show in the near future!

Just call me or text to set up a date & time that works for both you & me. I’m always happy to help.

Thank you Kevin for covering the Yes50 convention. I’ve never been to London (Heathrow doesn’t count!), but when I do go, I will be visiting some of the sites that the tour visited. To me, places like Abbey Road and Trident studios are hallowed ground!
Today I bought my tickets for the Yes show near Seattle on June 14th. I cannot wait!
Thanks to you and Mark for the excellent Yes podcast.

Thanks Paul I hope you have a wonderful time at the concert and you must indeed try to get around the London music sites. I have never done so before and it was wonderful.

Thank you so much, Kevin, for YMP 328. I’ve been listening for about three years now and this was the episode that has brought me the most joy. I couldn’t shuffle my obligations to make it to the Yes50 convention, and entertained high hopes that you’d be able to act as my proxy, as it were. You did me proud – I had a real sense of the event, all refracted through the prism of your own enthusiasm and presence there. It was wonderful. Slightly heartbreaking, but still wonderful.
In particular I enjoyed your extension of the usual format to include the location recordings from the landmark tour. Conveying a sense of geography is always going to be tricky sensory feat in an audio presentation, but it worked wonderfully here.
It sounded as though Brian and Dave did a terrific job of making the event happen, and thanks to your diligence I was able to savour far more of it from afar than I’d otherwise have managed.
This spring I’ve enjoyed the Glasgow gig, met most of the band beforehand, and have been doing my marathon training to countless retrospective Yes playlists. However, YMP 328 really takes the crown as the focus of my celebrating 50 years of what you regularly and correctly describe as the greatest progressive rock band of all time.

Thank you very much Dave. I’m so glad you enjoyed the episode. It’s always impossible to guess quite how this kind of thing is going to go but it seems to have worked well this time. 🙂

Thanks Kevin for a really interesting podcast. I loved the guided tour audio in particular. Denmark Street is an amazing place. The first time I went there was to buy a Rickenbacker bass guitar!

Hi guys,
Many thanks for the latest podcast….Inow regret not going on the bus trip, but at least I got some idea of how good it was from your recording.
The convention was excellent and of course it was great to meet up with you again Kevin , having met you and your son at the ARW Birmingham gig last year. DW’s memorabilia exhibition was excellent…..I thought Iwas the only one who still had the sparks a tic stickers from the 90125 tour…..of course Dave has everything ! It was a dream to speak to Roger Dean ….I was one of the first to talk to him , get a selfie, albums signed around 1 pm and he was still engaging with fans and me at 7 pm plus…..such a lovely man.
I have to agree with you regarding Seyes and Fragile …they were very good. As I mentioned to you and Dave and later to Henry …….when have Gates of Delirium, Close to the Edge, The Revealing Science of God, Ritual and Awaken been played on the same stage to a paying audience on one day….probably never !
I did three shows …Manchester, Liverpool and Sunday London…….I think the Liverpool show was the best …..we got Daytripper and Steve was on fire, but honestly all the shows were fantastic….not bad for a 50 year old band.

By the way the Deseo remixes you were curious about have been posted on YouTube, for some strange reason I have two copies of the original remix CD …the cover is sort of 3D. I originally bought the remixes because in the 90s I was a Jon Anderson obsessive and I was into electronic/techno dance music too particularly Future Sound of London , Transglobal underground and the Orb….FSOL and TgU did some of the remixes.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ph67GhUbMxc

Thanks Gary. Great to see you there as well. It was such a fabulous day and a brilliantly organised set of events. Definitely once in a lifetime! See you in Birmingham again I hope.

Gary thank you for the kind words and support. It was all I expected it to be and more. Oh did you know the bus tour will be run just twice more over the Yes ARW weekend in London. See if you can book for those, no plans for any more beyond those two. I aim be be there greeting all and will be at the O2 show.

Best wishes,
David

Posting a week late, so no one will see this. Anyway, I loved this episode. it threw me for a minute or two as it was such a different format (or at least the first 20 mins was) but I loved it. I’m so grateful to you for giving me some impressions of what it must be like to have been there. Really enjoyed it. Many thanks. My only excuse was I was in Derby for the day talking to amateur film makers about amateur film making (and that’s my attempt to appear to be a “creative”)

Listening to the tour was fascinating. Loved The Marquee on Wardour Street – went there regularly in the very early 70’s but wasn’t quite old enough to see Yes play there. I can still recall the sticky floor and the condensation running down the walls.

Gary thank you for the kind words and support. It was all I expected it to be and more. Oh did you know the bus tour will be run just twice more over the Yes ARW weekend in London. See if you can book for those, no plans for any more beyond those two. I aim be be there greeting all and will be at the O2 show.

Best wishes,
David

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