YES "Fly From Here" with re-recorded vocals in 2017?

Thanks for this thread. I want to listen to this album again now!

 

This is intriguing, if true, but where are you seeing this news?

 

I did a little searching and found these sources:

(Jon Anderson, Anderson Rabin Wakeman to record next year »)

(Rick Wakeman, Steve Smith: Former Yes keyboard legend Wakeman opens up about new band, ‘17 Stagecoach set, and more »)

So we might actually getting both live and studio albums from ARW, or at least a document of their current tour with a series of EPs that will likely be compiled into a single package later on?

 

I wouldn't be at all surprised if what we finally get is a Keys To Ascension-esque package, mostly live with one or two studio tracks at least to begin with.

In the world of YesOfficial LLC, another one on the cards is the Drama + Tales live release. They didn't record the UK shows to get Tales too but then Alan couldn't make it so they didn't film anything there either. Now they're doing a few shows on land before and after the Cruise To The Edge, at least one of which will be filmed for release. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this were the main reason for these shows in the first place.

 

There appears to be a degree of uncertainty within ARW as to how their new material will be released, so a "half-and-half" type set of the best live recordings plus a few studio tracks would definitely be a welcome compromise, though I'd naturally prefer to have more Yes-related items than less! As for a possible YesOfficial version of Drama live, that's another I would definitely love to have - especially if it forms part of a newly expanded version of the original from 1980, boosted with the rest of the outtakes from those sessions (unless these are being kept as incentive to make fans double dip on the upcoming Trevor Horn reworking of Fly From Here, since there will likely be a lot of crossover with this material). Whatever ends up happening, I still can't believe how active the surviving members remain... and that's before we also factor in the potential for a reunion when Yes is finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

 

The UK Hammersmith shows will be recorded for DVD

 

There's already been a keyboard substitution on that album, involving a Wakeman. Oliver Wakeman was the keyboard player at the start of the sessions, but the band fired him and replaced him with Downes at Horn's instigation. (I didn't know producers could do that, but there you go.) Traces of Wakeman's work remain on the album, including a recognizably Wakemanian keyboard part on "Hour of Need" for which he retained a writing credit.

 

Ever heard of a guy called Jonathan Elias? He replaced Howe, Squire, Wakeman (and possibly Bruford) with an army of studio musicians on "Union". He didn't kick them out of the band though.

 

Those Cinema-Sessions would be a most welcome treat for me.
Especially the rumoured 20-Minute epic (the track Cinema is apparently only the beginning of a lengthy track called "Time" IIRC).

 

Oh, don't get me started on "Union," an ironic title considering the number of outside scabs who participated in the sessions. The Yes personnel saga would make Pete Frame give up in despair at trying to chart it. (Yeah, he did the box set but that was 25 years ago.) I don't loathe "Union" the way some fans (and band members) do, but I can't help but wonder if it would have been a better album if the experienced, professional, virtuoso musicians in the band had been allowed to write and perform the songs instead of having occasional cameos on a Jonathan Elias album feat. Jimmy Haun. No slight against Jimmy, but he wasn't a Yes member.

 

Time was indeed the name of the twenty-minute track Cinema is derived from, but my worry is that it's yet another one of those directionless instrumentals played around the same period and that we've already got the best part (which may explain why the full version remains locked away in the vault). As someone who didn't hear the Drama bonus tracks ahead of getting that album's expanded reissue, I was very disappointed by what I've read were a handful of countless similar tracks the core rhythm section would tirelessly rehearse during this era. Similar to how Trevor Horn pulled the Drama material together by combining some of the post-Tormato jams with his own compositions, I suspect a lot of Cinema's actual studio recordings and therefore 90125 were shaped by his return to Yes.

 

Does anybody else suspect that Trevor Horn is currently working his way through a "bucket list" of sorts? As if his 2017 schedule didn't already look packed enough, he was recently filmed leading rehearsals with this new supergroup, which also features Geoff Downes, Russ Ballard, ex-Smokie vocalist Chris Norman and former Move/Electric Light Orchestra/Black Sabbath drummer Bev Bevan:

 

I know RW stated he wanted to film hammersmith, but is this confirmed?
Fingers crossed!!!

 

He's playing Cropredy with a band that mentioned Lol Crême in the blurb, so if Bev is there too, I'll be very happy indeed!!

 

This new group is supposedly a spin-off from Bev Bevan's Zing Band, which only came to exist when Trevor Burton walked out on a planned tour last year to celebrate The Move's 50th anniversary (following abandoned negotiations for a more complete reunion with Roy Wood as the surprise opening act of the final Birmingham show on the recent Alone In The Universe Tour by Jeff Lynne's ELO). The project you mentioned featuring Trevor and Lol is more than likely a similar evolution of their work together as The Producers, though it may also be a further hint towards the Art of Noise doing something, as both have been members of that collective at the same time as well - a short video posted on their official YouTube channel a while back teased renewed activity, including what appears to be documentation suggesting that someone - perhaps even a returning JJ Jeczalik? - was looking to obtain a Fairlight CMI.

 

I've managed to find an officially connected Facebook account with even more footage of that rehearsal session, which appears to have been last month at Music Bank in London for an upcoming 02 show, not to mention there are quite a few hints of this being a new supergroup with plans to go on a possible stadium tour in the near future. As for the Cropredy line-up this year, The Trevor Horn Band is indeed listed as playing there in August, and Lol was definitely a member of that group's previous incarnation, The Producers (along with the Art of Noise). However, I still think this other project has more plans beyond a one-off festival appearance... Why else would they be practicing this early?

Anyway, here's the link if anyone wants to see what else they can perhaps dig up:

UMU Music | Facebook »

 

Yes, it is confirmed.

 

Awesome - a link somewhere?

 

I don't think Fly From Here with Trevor singing will be released. I think I read it on Henry Pott's website as it was more of a fun thing Trevor wanted to do. I wouldn't expect anything from Warner/Rhino with regards to any type of expanded Drama as it's not likely to happen. Actually some of the Rhino 2003 remasters are now OOP in the US.

 

Considering Anne Dudley, Gary and JJ are doing something later this year too (albeit not as Art Of Noise), we may soon have a Yes style situation with two rival factions of official members…

 

Elias is a jerk and he bashed Wakeman in Keyboard magazine back when Union came out. I wrote a letter to the editor of Keyboard Magazine bashing Elias for what he said about Rick and it was published. Now if I could only find it!!

 

I always preferred the Art of Noise with JJ on board, so could this perhaps explain the reason behind their official YouTube channel posting a video hinting at the group (or at least someone connected to them) trying to acquire a Fairlight? I'd absolutely love to see JJ reunited with a Fairlight, preferably still using his original sample library. My guess is that Trevor is more concerned with his new touring outfit and the long-rumoured new Buggles project to bother fighting the others for a name he's no intention of doing anything with, but if there is a dispute over this, I don't really care what the original trio end up being called - just like ARW, I'll judge them on musical quality rather than backstage politics. Saying that, didn't AoN start off as their band, with Trevor only joining later?

On a related note, it seems as if we've come a long way from the early 1980s when Steve Howe described himself as being stuck with the rights to Yes and very little desire to continue on with the group, which explains why he went on to form Asia, leaving the door open for Cinema to evolve into what some fans now affectionately refer to as "Yes West." After recent lawsuits were supposedly handed out by Howe to stop ARW from being promoted in such a way that Yes was featured more visibly in advertisements than he was comfortable with them doing, I'd be very interested to see who exactly turns up for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. While it's not quite the same, they have so many parallels with Jeff Lynne and ELO Part II/The Orchestra...

 

It sure will be interesting at the R&R HOF for sure. I would love to be a fly on the wall behind the scenes when the guys are all in one room together.

 

I've never really been a fully fledged Yes fan, always more in the Genesis camp, but I have to say I don't think they have released one bad album.
There I said it .

 

They have. They are perhaps my favorite band, but, not everything's roses. Union, is a rough listen. The last two aren't consistently that great. Keys To Ascension would have been a great album if the studio tunes were put on one album and the live tunes stuck somewhere else. I pretty much like everything else though. Talk and that one with a very generic name that I can't think took a while to grow on me though (that might be my fault for not listen to new albums as much as I did in my younger years).

I've mentioned this before: Benoit's not the problem with Fly From Here, the songs are, but, I will purchase a Trevor Horn rerelease. Any word on if/when?