Rock Hall of Famers Yes featuring ARW gift “Quintessential” golden anniversary to Milwaukee

Photos by Andy Argyrakis

Getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame featuring a performance from all the surviving, still active “Union”-era members was quite a way to warm up for Yes’ 50th anniversary. And now having both Yes featuring ARW (original singer Jon Anderson, classic keyboardist Rick Wakeman and second coming guitarist/vocalist Trevor Rabin), along with the more plainly named Yes (anchored by longtime guitarist Steve Howe and drummer Alan White) mount separate tours to honor the occasion means mounds of airtime for the progressive rock pioneers.

An encore of “Roundabout” found Yes featuring ARW giving yet another proficient tutorial on how the cerebral can also become massively popular and why the band only escalates in esteem with every passing decade.

In the case of Yes featuring ARW, their “Quintessential” evening filled up much of Milwaukee’s Riverside Theater prior to a Ravinia debut closer to Chicago on Friday, September 7 (also the street date for the trio’s “Live At The Apollo” audio and visual collections). For those that caught the fellas in the flesh, it meant a fairly similar set list with a few surprises that offered a wide-ranging representation of the ginormous act’s main body of work.

Yes featuring ARW began somewhere in the middle with “Cinema” and “Hold On,” two arena-tailored tunes from the more commercially-minded “90125” that shot the group right back to the top following ‘70s standouts such as “I’ve Seen All Good People.” Throughout 130 minutes, the guys kept alternating between the accessible (“Changes,” “Rhythm Of Love,” “Lift Me Up,” “I Am Waiting”) and the complicated (“And You And I,” “Perpetual Change,” “Heart Of The Sunrise”), all with expert musicianship and the 73-year-old Anderson retraining a respectable portion of his sizable range.

The threesome dipped back to the days when a track took up nearly the entire side of an album for “Awaken,” representing Wakeman’s heralded return on “Going For The One,” while Rabin really got to strut on the six-string for “Owner Of A Lonely Heart” sandwiched between a bit of “Make It Easy” and Cream’s “Sunshine Of Your Love” (accompanied by both of those musicians venturing into the audience and even an opera box!) An encore of “Roundabout” found Yes featuring ARW giving yet another proficient tutorial on how the cerebral can also become massively popular and why the band only escalates in esteem with every passing decade.