How John Lennon getting drunk ended up seeing rock legends Yes get big | Music | Entertainment
John Lennon’s drinking saw him miss the Yes gig (Image: Getty)
They have survived more splits and squabbles than a TV soap marriage, and sold over 30million albums worldwide. Famous fans range from Lady Gaga to Phil Collins, via U2’s The Edge and Bill Gates. But former singer Jon Anderson says Yes “would not have existed without the Beatles – when I heard Tomorrow Never Knows I realised they weren’t just a rock’n’roll band. That was the most sonically and lyrically adventurous departure from everything I’d ever heard. It was like listening to music for the first time. It affected us because it was revolutionary. And Sergeant Pepper was a ridiculously great move in a direction that no one had even perceived before.
“We realised that from that moment onwards, anything was possible. That’s why Yes created what we created.”
The Beatles returned the love. John Lennon rated Anderson’s vocals so highly he tried to sign him to Apple Records, and Paul McCartney and George Harrison both adored Yes’s cover of the Fab Four’s Every Little Thing on their 1969 debut album; their intense re-imaging of Eleanor Rigby was never officially released.
Yes, including veteran virtuoso guitarist Steve Howe, tour Britain next month, celebrating the 55th anniversary of their 1971 multi-platinum Fragile album. Prog Rock, a very English creation, conquered the globe, and Yes were in the vanguard. Their intricate compositions, marrying classical, folk and rock influences to breath-taking musicianship and fantastical lyrics, made them millionaires. Forming in London 58 years ago, they have released six platinum or multi-platinum albums. They topped the US singles chart with Owner Of A Lonely Heart and their songs have featured prominently in films like School Of Rock and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
But even Yes couldn’t beat American weather. A torrential downpour stopped them from even starting their headlining set at Oklahoma’s Zoo Amphitheatre in 2017. “The rain was so heavy, Carl Palmer joked that canoes were required to get off-stage. We thought someone might start building an ark,” recalls keyboard wizard Geoff Downes. “And in Maryland, we’d only played three songs when the security people started waving flags at us and shouting ‘Get off the stage there’s a hurricane coming!’”
The band weathered another storm when they recruited Buggles stars Geoff and Trevor ‘Mad Professor’ Horn to replace Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson respectively in May 1980. Hardcore UK fans dismissed the new line-up as “Yeggles”. Geoff, 73, recalls, “There was a lot of animosity. I was halfway through an organ solo in Brighton when someone shouted ‘Rick Wakeman!’ But Trevor got more stick because Jon was so revered. You just had to shrug it off and carry on. American audiences were much more accepting – they were so stoned they didn’t really care who was in the band!”
The ex-Buggles proved their song-writing and production skills on their subsequent Top 3 album Drama, released in August 1980. Then came the daunting live shows. “The first gig on the Drama tour was at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto to 20,000 people,” says Geoff. “I could hardly believe it. I’d come from studio work, it was awe-inspiring; a baptism of fire.”
That September, Yes sold out three consecutive nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden, playing to 63,000 people. The self-defined ‘musical dysfunctional family’ had their Spinal Tap moment there the following year when they played on a round stage at the centre of the arena.
Geoff recalls, “It was surrounded by curtains and we were smuggled in through a trap door; then the lights would shine down and the audience would suddenly see five figures appear inside it. It was very effective. Except on this occasion the curtain didn’t open and we had to crawl under it…”
Even funnier, Geoff’s predecessor Rick Wakeman was so paralytic when he played the Paramount Theatre, Seattle on his 1976 solo tour, that he told each band member he’d be opening with a different song. Consequently, they played four numbers simultaneously. Incredibly the resulting cacophony got a sparkling review from one critic who mistook it for jazz-rock fusion. Rick also arrived on stage, unrehearsed, using the theatre’s Wurlitzer which promptly collapsed leaving him with cuts, bruises, and a dislocated shoulder.
Read more: Paul McCartney pays devastated tribute as bandmate dies – ‘Sad to see him go’
The YES Fragile Tour starts on 22nd April in Glasgow (Image: YES)
In 1977, Yes played six consecutive sold-out nights at the Wembley Empire Pool (a total of 75,000 people). Venues are smaller now, but still sell out. Geoff says, “We played some weird places in America last October, like the chicken-in-a-basket circuit where you start and they’re still eating their desserts; casinos too where you don’t get a typical Yes audience.”
Bassist Chris Squire and guitarist Peter Banks formed the original line-up in 1968, recruiting Jon Anderson whose unique high tenor had a spine-tingling ethereal quality – Yes’s current vocalist, Californian Jon Davison has a similar bewitching voice. John Lennon saw Anderson sing at London’s Speakeasy Club and tried to sign him to Apple. According to contemporary sources, Lennon “got drunk and missed Yes’s later gig at the club,” and Atlantic snapped them up instead.
The Fab Four connection goes on. Alan White (Yes’s drummer from 1972 until his death in 2022) played in Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and on classics like Instant Karma and the Imagine album, and Harrison’s All Things Must Pass; and Rick Wakeman starred with Ringo and Roger Daltrey in Ken Russell’s 1975 film Lisztomania.
When Steve Howe joined Yes in May 1970, he talked the band out of doing covers, and co-wrote some of their best-known songs including Starship Trooper, Yours Is No Disgrace, and prog masterpiece Roundabout.
“I helped change Yes’s direction,” says Steve, 78. “I don’t try and take credit. They were a great band but they hadn’t proved themselves as artists. I had no interest in covers.”
Eccentricity abounded. Wakeman, who joined in 1971 just hours before David Bowie tried to recruit him, was arrested three times in Soviet Russia for crimes like buying and attempting to smuggle home a Russian admiral’s uniform. Rick also famously ate a full chicken vindaloo meal on stage on the band’s 1973 UK tour during a song where “I didn’t have much to do”.
Jon Anderson, who left Yes for good in 2008, renowned for his spiritual and often baffling lyrics, would meditate in a teepee on tour and talk to plants. While Chris Squire, RIP, was prone to turning to board their private jet wearing just a jacket and a pair of y-fronts. “He’d be late getting up at the hotel – we used to call him The Late Chris Squire – and he was in such a rush [and so hungover] he packed his trousers.”
Stockport-born Geoff, a staunch Cardiff City supporter seems relatively normal. The son of church organist, Geoff formed jazz-fusion band, She’s French, in his teens before moving to London and finding himself sharing a house in Clapham with Chrissie Hynde. Nick Kent, a junkie rock writer, had lived in the room before him. “There were a few hypodermic syringes about. It was a little scary but Chrissie was friendly. She was struggling to learn guitar – she only knew a couple of chords then – and going out with Johnny Rotten at the time. One day she came back with a safety pin in her cheek. I heard she was difficult to deal with, but she was pleasant and very down to earth; a real character.”
Geoff’s early jobs included session playing and writing radio ad jingles. “I did jingles for anything that came along – cars, nappies, cigarettes, Allied Carpets. The best was for Wrigley’s Orbit Sugar-Free Gum.”
In 1975, Downes was MD for the touring Wombles show before meeting Trevor Horn at an audition, beating thirty other musicians to play keyboards with pop star Tina Charles – then Horn’s girlfriend. They backed her live and produced her records. Their breakthrough as The Buggles came in 1979 with the global hit Video Killed The Radio Star – a Number One smash, the first song ever played on MTV, and later sampled by Will.i.am and Nicki Minaj on their global 2010 hit Check It Out.
The pair originally joined guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Chris Squire and late drummer Alan White
You would need Google Slides to chart all their subsequent line-up changes. Downes and Howe are in the current band with Jay Schellen (drums), Jon Davison (vocals) and Billy Sherwood (bass). In 1981, when Horn quit to pursue his hugely successful and influential career as a producer, Yes (briefly) called it a day, and Geoff and Steve formed 80s supergroup Asia (still touring) with King Crimson bassist/singer John Wetton and drummer Carl Palmer from Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Geoff also released solo albums, formed Downes Braide Association with Sia collaborator Chris Braide, worked with stars including Mike Oldfield and the Thompson Twins, and played on Kate Bush’s 1981 Dreaming album, adding stabbing horns to Sat In Your Lap.
Father-of-two Geoff lives in West Wales by the sea and relaxes by painting, watching football and writing his autobiography. Yes’s Fragile tour starts next month and ends with two nights at the Palladium in May. “We’re doing Sunday Night at the London Palladium – that takes me back… the ITV variety show with the Tiller Girls and the revolving stage,” Geoff beams.
“Fragile was the defining Yes LP, we’ll be playing strictly in order as it is on the album, starting with Roundabout which we normally do at the end of the set.
“I should be semi-retired at my age, but we’ve got a few things coming up” – including a new Yes album – “so I’m not hanging up the organ stops yet.”
*The YES Fragile Tour starts on 22nd April in Glasgow and ends with 2 shows at the London Palladium on 3rd and 4th May. For info and tickets see yesworld.com
