Yes Signs Up Another New Singer - Jon Davison from Glass Hammer

Word buzzing around the Yes camp was that Jon Anderson's replacement Benoit David was ill, the band had to cancel a few shows, and there was going to be a temporary replacement for an upcoming tour of Australia -- another Yes tribute band singer, Jon Davison

But now Chris Squire has broken the news to Noise11 that Benoit is out for good. I am sure Yes' PR people are going apeshit with this:

“Jon Davison is coming in because of Benoit’s departure. I always hope that when there is a member change in the band that it will be a permanent thing. Only time will tell really”, founding member Chris Squire told Noise11.com this morning.

“I don’t know if I’m meant to be telling you this yet, so I guess you’ve got a scoop.”

Like Benoit David, Jon Davison was discovered fronting a Yes covers band. Benoit had joined Yes after the departure of original singer Jon Anderson. He has been suffering from respiratory failure this year and could not continue on for the Australia tour in April. However, his departure is permanent.

“Yes, he has officially left Yes,” Chris says.

Benoit David joined Yes in 2008. He sings lead on the latest yes album ‘Fly From Here’.

“People have left to go off to do various projects and solo projects over the years,” Chris says. “Some like Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman have left and come back. In Rick’s case, four times. It’s always been a fairly flexible in and out door for some members of the band. At the last count, including Jon Davison, he is the 18th member of the band. It has never been personal problems. It’s just things that happen at certain times”.

Ugh - this is really too bad. I mean, I hate to say this but I have been listening to Fly From Here a lot and started to really enjoy Benoit David's vocals! If you forget that it is supposed to be a Yes album, it helps. It's just mostly very good music - heavily influenced by Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes. Now that lineup is ditched. Whatever!

But for the record, Davison sounds pretty damn good in the below video, and his other band Glass Hammer is a true prog outfit. I always thought Benoit David was fairly passionless and didn't seem to be a big Yes fan - until I got into Fly From Here of course. So, who knows, maybe this will be a good pairing overall. I'll be watching YouTube for fan videos from Australia in April.

Chris Squire and Some Yes Tidbits - On the Fence

I have been on the fence. Should I go see the pseudo-Yes tour with the clone lead singer? It will never be the same without Jon Anderson but they are playing a tiny place in Portland (for them) and are doing stuff off of one of my favorite albums, Drama (see videos below).

Will it kill me if I miss this? No. But if Chris Squire dies this summer and I was not able to see these guys play again, would I be bummed? Yes.

Decisions, decisions.

In my quest for an answer, I stumbled across some interesting nuggets. Squire in November quietly posted a pretty enlightening interview on his official Web site. He answers some of the hard questions fired at him from online fan sites, such as, what is he thinking by replacing Anderson and what happens after this tour? Here are a couple of things that stood out:

RS: You’ve referred to Benoit as an understudy on the Internet. Are you being ‘p.c.’, so as not to ruffle any feathers, or could Benoit be the new voice of Yes?

Chris: The fact is that Jon Anderson had a series of health problems, and he’s not out of the woods yet. I really don’t know what his prognosis will be – if he’ll be able to do any lengthy tours. Although I did mention that Benoit was the understudy originally, which is the fair way of saying it. You know, a stand in. I can’t really tell. Obviously I’m not really a doctor and I can’t tell how Jon will be in the future, but I imagine it will be more limited to doing maybe some individual shows here and there with him. I don’t know if he’ll ever want to do a full-scale tour again. But once again, until he’s recovered, and of course we wish him a full recovery, we won’t know any of those things. So meanwhile we’re getting along all right with Benoit.

RS: Are there any plans to record a new album with this current line-up?

Chris: Yes. Absolutely. We’re looking at doing some new recording. And obviously we’ll be working with the guys on that. Although there are no definite plans or dates yet, because obviously we’re working on this tour. But, we’ll be introducing new ideas. I know Steve Howe has new ideas and I know I have, as I mentioned earlier, have written quite a lot of material when I was in London that I want to use for that purpose.

Another thing Squire talked about in November was the coming birth of his new baby, due in March. But on the Yesworld site, Squire posted on Christmas that his daughter had been born - that's almost four months premature. Here is the post:

December 25, 2008 - Message from Chris & Scotty Squire
We would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We are pleased to announce the very early arrival of our daughter, Xilan Squire, born on Dec. 19th

Everyone is happy and healthy and doing as well as can be at this time. Xilan weighs in at 1 pound 13 ounces and is being a very brave little starship trooper/pooper.

Best wishes to all and Happy Holidays.

There is a photo here. That is a very small preemie and I hope she is doing OK! Wow.

And to further help me make my decision, I did some YouTube trolling and found these fan videos of Machine Messiah from the first leg of the tour. Hmm. Sounds pretty damn good. I will never see that song again live. Decisions, decisions.

Machine Messiah Part 1


Machine Messiah Part 2

Interview With Yes Replacement Singer Benoit David

Notes from the Edge has posted an interview with Benoit David, the Yes tribute band singer who is taking Jon Anderson's place on the upcoming 40th Anniversary tour. It's an interesting read, and the main impression I get is that he is not a big Yes fan but rather looks at this opportunity as a job and is going to do his best to sing the songs for as long as they need him, after which time he'll return to his normal life.

A coupla quotes:

NFTE: Let's go into how you got this offer to sing with Yes. How did that come about?

BD: Oh well, that's an amazing story. Here's the whole story. It all started when Richard, our bass player for the tribute band Close to the Edge, he's our manager and bass player in the band, and he had ordered a re-release of an album that Chris [Squire] made. I don't have the details from that, but you probably know about that.

NFTE: Fish out of Water?

BD: Yeah, I guess; I don't even know the name. Though he had ordered that, and the thing said well, be patient, because Scottie and me are taking care of this in our own kitchen, and it might take a while before we get back at you, but it doesn't mean that we're not taking care of you. And I think it was like in June of this year, Richard got a call from Scottie at his place here in the Laurentians, and as he was talking with Scottie on the phone, going over the order and so forth, well, Richard mentioned, "By the way, maybe you guys would like to know that we have a tribute band, a pretty good one too, and we're having a ball playing that music." So Scottie put Chris on the phone, and they had a bit of conversation together, and a couple of days after, we got an email from Chris on our website saying I watched this, and you guys are great, and this is really good, and I'm telling the other guys about it. It happened that a couple of weeks later the news came out that Jon had health problems, so another week later Chris called Richard, saying, "Would it be ok if we borrowed your singer," (laughs). Richard gave Chris my phone number, and Chris called me as I was working, and there you go. That's how it happened.

NFTE: What would you like to say to Yes fans out there through this conversation?

BD: What I would like to say to them is I'm not Jon Anderson. I can't take Jon's place and do that. I'm fortunate enough that the members of the band thought that I could do a good job singing those songs, but I won't be replacing Jon Anderson. I'm just going to do my best to sing those pieces in the best way that I can so the public can have a good time listening to them. That's what I want to say. I go there very simply, because I was asked, and that's it. I don't want to take too much space in that process.

So, sounds like a level headed dude, but I still don't agree with the band's decision on this one. Even if they are going to do Machine Messiah!