Jon Anderson returns: YES co-founder tours UK

Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks will perform YES classics across seven UK venues from 15 September to 1 October, playing Birmingham Symphony Hall, the London Palladium, and Glasgow Royal Concert Hall among others. Tickets go on sale Friday 20 February at 10am.

The partnership represents one of the more unlikely success stories in rock’s perpetual nostalgia circuit. The Band Geeks began life in 2014 as the house band for ‘Band Geek with Richie Castellano’, a podcast hosted by the Blue Öyster Cult guitarist. What started as casual jam sessions covering classic rock anthems gradually evolved into something more serious.

But it was their faithful recreations of YES’s labyrinthine compositions that caught Anderson’s attention. ‘The first time I heard the Band Geeks I truly freaked out,’ the singer said. ‘They sound just like the classic YES of the seventies, the YES that I know and love.’ High praise from a man who helped define that sound alongside guitarist Steve Howe and the late bassist Chris Squire.

Anderson’s journey to this moment has been characterised by both triumph and turbulence. As a founding member and the voice of YES, he sang on the band’s most celebrated albums including Fragile, Close to the Edge, Tales from Topographic Oceans. His departure from YES in 2008, initially due to health issues that prevented him from touring, marked the end of an era and sparked legal wrangling over the band’s name, with rival lineups touring simultaneously.

However the Band Geeks collaboration, which began touring in 2023, appears to have given Anderson something he’s long sought: a chance to perform YES’s music with musicians who possess both the technical ability and the genuine enthusiasm required for these demanding compositions.

Their chemistry was evident enough that they released True in 2024, an album of original material that aimed to recapture Yes’s classic 1970s sound whilst nodding to the band’s latter-day commercial peak with 90125. The album Live: Perpetual Change documented their ongoing tour and suggests they’ve managed to bottle something of the original’s lightning.