An emphatic Yes

THIS was the first track I ever heard by Yes, and it epitomises everything I hold dear about them in its overreaching grandiloquence, frankly unnecessary musical fidgeting and, well, its magnificently radiant, thrilling optimism.

In 1972, Yes were practically off the map in terms of the sheer accomplishment of their arrogant musicality. That year’s album Close To The Edge allegedly derived its title from the fact that they were, as a band, almost at the point where they could progress no further without tipping over into the unknown or disappearing up their own collective fundament.

The hammering, fanatical and practically clairvoyant three-way interplay between Steve Howe, Chris Squire and Bill Bruford over the introduction of Close To The Edge’s side-long title track proved beyond a shadow of doubt that they were indeed attaining light speed and critical mass; as a performance, it is anchored to this world merely by its fingernails.

The next thing you know, drummer Bill Bruford ups sticks – how very apt – and leaves the band on the eve of the Close To The Edge tour, which is almost exactly the point at which Yes stopped being vital and exciting (although Awaken from 1977 admittedly excuses any amount of topographic footling).

America finds the Bruford-era band flexing their chops to a ludicrously showy degree on the old Simon & Garfunkel chestnut, pulling the melody apart in several directions at once, juggling the constituent parts and teetering throughout on the high wire of their own bravura inventiveness.

At this point, their ability to worry at and dismember any given musical motif was easily the equal of any Coltrane-era jazz extemporisers, and America finds them adopting and discarding more musical ideas in the space of a few minutes (or 10, if you opt for the unedited non-single version) than most bands could hope to stumble across in the course of an entire career.

It’s utterly daft of course, and sidelines the emotive stillness of S&G’s original to make room for more big top thrills and spills – but it is also monumentally uplifting, like being yanked out of bed by the brightest sunrise in the history of the universe.

I’m so glad that in the last few years I’ve finally been able to step out of the Yes closet...