Jon Anderson’s Comments on The Current Yes Tour

Not long after Yes announced plans for a European tour, Jon Anderson is checking in and publicly sharing his feelings about his relationship with the rest of the group.

Anderson, the long-time frontman for the venerable group, had reportedly been battling serious health problems over the past five years and has now reached the point where he feels that he is ready to begin performing again. He has stated that his band mates are being “disrespectful” by continuing to tour as ‘Yes’ with current stand in Benoit David.

“The band recruited a guy from a Canadian Yes tribute band and went on the road with him. I felt they could have waited until I’d recovered,” Anderson said.

He goes on to explain that be believes that fans are being misled because they are buying tickets to a Yes show where they are expecting to see him fronting the group instead of a replacement singer.

Anderson says that he had been in touch with the group before the current tour and made it know that he was available to re-join them, but he was told that the group must fulfill contract obligations to David. Anderson describes it as a “complicated situation.”

The fact that the group is touring under the Yes banner does not sit well with Anderson under the circumstances, and he feels that they should not be using that name and should be advising fans that he is not part of the tour.

Despite the obvious friction between himself and the rest of the group, Anderson still indicates that he wishes the group well. As someone who has been involved with the music business as long as Jon Anderson has been, it is probably not too surprising to him that that contractual obligations to David must be honored. How long the contract lasts is not clear.

Maybe things will be patched up once David’s contract expires, and as long as Anderson remains healthy, perhaps fans can hold out some hope of seeing him reunited to once again assemble a group that more closely resembles the Yes that fans fondly recall from years gone by.

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Tags: Benoit David, Contract, John Anderson, tour, Yes