Tune In, Turn On
Frequent readers of this column have often seen me write about how great the music scene was when I was growing up, with a plethora of outstanding artists from David Bowie, Blondie and the Talking Heads, to the Allman Brothers Band, ZZ Top, Bruce Springsteen and countless others.
There was also a strong movement of spacey, synthesizer-centric bands that emerged during that era (Emerson Lake & Palmer, German group Kraftwerk, and Genesis quickly come to mind), as well as another very popular ensemble.
Yes, the UK-based group, formed in 1968 and created lengthy, progressive rock songs including such memorable gems as “Long Distance Runaround,” “Yours Is No Disgrace,” “Close To The Edge,” “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” “Roundabout” and many more.
Jon Anderson, now 80, one of the founding members of Yes, is touring again (coming to Ocean City July 7; more on this shortly), performing songs from the vast Yes catalog, under the moniker, Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks, in which he is, naturally, singing lead vocals.
The backstory: In the summer of 2018, Anderson saw a video online of the 1972 Yes classic, “Close To The Edge” being performed by multi-instrumentalist Richie Castellano and friends, which amassed a staggering half-million views. If the name sounds familiar, Castellano is a longtime and still-current member of another popular group from the aforementioned era, Blue Oyster Cult.
Anderson liked it so much he asked Castellano and the other members to go out on tour. Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks were born. They even released an original album together, “True,” in August of 2024, in addition to a CD/DVD package, “Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks Live – Perpetual Change,” in March of this past year.
“I can’t even wrap my head around all of this,” Castellano told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview. “I used to go watch Jon in concert and scream at him. Getting to do something like this is just a dream. It’s also been an opportunity as a Yes fan to go, ‘OK, we’ve been handed the keys to the kingdom. We have Jon Anderson singing for us. How do we want this to go?”
New Jersey angle: Castellano first saw Yes when the Talk tour came to the Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel in September 1994.
“As a young guitar player, Trevor Rabin just melted my face,” he said. “I probably saw them seven or eight times after that. I converted all my friends.”
“I told Richie (Castellano) I wanted to go on tour,” recalled Anderson in the same interview. “He goes, ‘Jon, are you serious?’ I said to him, ‘Yeah, I want to play ‘Gates of Delirium,’ ‘Close to the Edge,’ ‘Awaken,’ and all the hits of the seventies. If we have to do anything like ‘Owner [of a Lonely Heart],’ we’ll do it at the end. But generally speaking, I want to do the music of Yes in the seventies, the best of it.”
Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks are playing the Ocean City Music Pier on Monday, July 7 at 7 p.m.; tickets/info at etix.com. Former Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman plays the OCMP Monday, July 21. Additionally, Yes: The Fragile Tour 2025 is coming to Hard Rock Live on Saturday, Oct. 4.
If you’re a Yes fan, that’s three upcoming concerts featuring members from the iconic band. Who says we don’t get the best live shows here at the Jersey Shore?
Have a great Fourth of July everyone.
Doug is the owner/operator of Doug Deutsch Publicity Services, which since 1995 has been servicing nationally touring acts, and working record release campaigns for clients. Doug can be reached at ShoreLocalDoug@gmail.com
