ABWH - (1989) Birmingham, England

October 24th, 1989 - Birmingham, England
Venue/City: National Exhibition Centre,
Source: Soundboard

In the late 80s, Jon Anderson was pretty tired of the Trevor Rabin dominated Yes. As described Steve:
Jon called and asked me if I thought it was the right time to start working together again. Speaking to him, I felt pretty instantly that something good could be gotten out of it. Certainly, that's what I'd hoped for, since Jon and I had always had a lot of fun writing together. (...) Jon's creative powers and imagination are quite enormous, so they need to be listened to like everybody else's ideas. When Jon spoke to me, he was calling Wakeman and Bruford as well. He got the same feedback from them that we could do it. At the first meeting we just talked about it, then we took it to the next stage by collaborating on the songs.
This way, ABWH was born. They released an album with new material (described by Bill: They're essentially Jon's songs. I had very little to do with them. I thought that Jon was on strong form for that album, yes, I thought he was on strong form.) and then they started touring.
To replace Mr. Squire on bass, the famous Tony Levin (who played with King Crimson, Peter Gabriel and more hundreds of people) was chosen. Steve says: He was a very logical and wonderful choice because of his association with Bill. We'd all admired im tremendously. The bass department was vacant, and Tony was a marvelous choice.
Did Tony replace Chris well? Many say yes, I have to say no. He's an accomplished and respected bassist, but he's not suited to Yes style. This concert here, from 1989, shows many things, and one of them is Squire's decisive role in Yes music, more evident when he's not around. Other complaints I do are about Rick's and Bill's modern timbres... Some keyboards have a rather new-age feeling that doesn't fit well in songs like Starship Trooper. I'm glad Rick would return to his moog in the 90s! Bill uses some electronic drums in Close to the Edge that spoilthe experience of finally hearing him playing this song live...
Sorry but I can't help being critic about ABWH. To counterbalance my opinion, I'll quote a review by Prosciutto, in Progarchives:
The performances on most of the songs are great specially on the ABWH numbers which are the highlights (...) About the Yes songs, the standout is without doubt Close to the Edge, this epic never had sounded so bombastic and powerful before, in addition the vocal performance of Jon Anderson is incredibly inspired, I think this is the definitive version of Close to the Edge. The rest of the Yes numbers are just OK.

ABWH are:
Jon Anderson > Vocals
Bill Bruford > Drums
Steve Howe > Guitars
Rick Wakeman > Keyboards
Julian Colbeck > Keyboards
Tony Levin > Bass
Milton McDonald > Guitars


Setlist:
Disc 1:
1. Time and a word / Owner of a lonely heart / Teakbois
2. Clap
3. Mood for a day
4. Wakeman Solo
5. Long distance runaround/Drum Solo
6. Birthright
7. And you and I
8. All good people
9. Close to the Edge

Disc 2:
1. Themes / Bruford-Levin duet
2. Brother of mine
3. The meeting
4. Heart of the sunrise
5. Order of the universe
6. Roundabout
7. Starship trooper