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Chris Squire? Yes!
April 4, 2007

It was with a combination of teen-like enthusiasm and an equally teen-like sense of embarrassment that I told Chris Squire, bass player for the legendary Prog-Rock band Yes, of my air guitar performances of his bass line on Yes’s “Long Distance Runaround.” He seemed to get a kick out of the fact that I

scratched them out on my Wilson tennis racket. But I got more of a kick out of talking to Squire about the Yes: Live at Montreux 2003 DVD that was just released by Eagle Vision. In particular, it was fascinating discussing how the veteran rock outfit (they’ve been together for some 38 years now, with co-founder Squire being the only original member to appear on every album and every incarnation since the beginning) chose a set list for their more recent tours.

“We have such a long history of so many different times and styles, when we come to do a live show, it’s hard to pick what era and album we should do,” Squire told me during our Transatlantic phone interview. ‘There are some songs that we do in every show—“Roundabout,” of course, and usually “I’ve Seen All Good People.” One of my favorites is “Heart of the Sunrise”--I’m always happy to perform that one.”

So what does Squire think of the 2003 Montreux performance, which also includes versions “And You and I,” “Siberian Khatru” and, yes, “Long Distance Runaround.”

“I think it was one of our better performances, but I will tell you that we had pretty consistently been doing

shows from ’97 up to that time,” he said Sq. “The band was pretty well-oiled by the time we got to 2003.”

And speaking of “Long Distance Runaround,” bassist extraordinaire Squire actually asked me how my tennis game developed when I wasn’t aping his act on my racket. It was at that point that I thanked him for his time and wisely hung up the phone.

Posted by Laurence Lerman on April 4, 2007 | Comments (0)