Sad to hear that Alan White, drummer for Yes, died recently at the age of 72 after a brief illness.
White replaced Bill Bruford when Bruford left Yes. He also drummed for numerous other musicians, including Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, and was the drummer on John Lennon's song Imagine. So there's some immortality for you.
Alan White was the drummer for the one Yes show I saw live, which in retrospect is not the one Yes band lineup that I would have liked to have seen if I had to pick only one, but it is what it is. I saw Yes at the Spectrum in Philadelphia on April 30, 1984 as part of the 90125 tour. I was wrapping up my senior year in high school...
The classic Yes lineup was Chris Squire on bass, Steve Howe on guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, Rick Wakeman on keyboards and Jon Anderson on vocals.
The 90125 tour lineup was long after Bruford had left and been replaced by Alan White, and after Steve Howe left and was replaced by Trevor Rabin. Wakeman was also long gone and replaced by keyboardist Tony Kaye. Original members Squire and Anderson remained. It was a great concert and a great band, but there is no arguing that the Trevor Rabin years were a very different version of Yes as compared to the Yes Album and Fragile days, or Close to the Edge. I liked it then, and still do, but it was...almost not Yes.
White was the dummer for 3,070 live Yes shows according to Wikipedia. And I saw one of them...
Of all these Yes folks, I have seen Anderson, Squire, White and Rabin once (in 1984), Steve Howe twice but both as a member of Asia (once on 8/27/83 at the Spectrum touring for the Alpha album, and once on 10/20/12 touring for the XXX album at the intimate Keswick Theater in the 4th row - 29 years after the first time). I've never seen Bruford or Wakeman live.
Anyway, yet another one from my early years is gone. And Chris Squire has already passed. Tempus Fugit.
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