Yes Music Podcast · Kevin Mulryne and Mark Anthony K

693 - The Drama is Live

·46 min·2 clips

Yes created an elaborate illusion to make the band magically appear in the center of the stage using misdirection.

A new video changes the conversation. Kevin builds the episode around James Farani's online Drama tour footage, especially the chance to see and hear consecutive 1980 performances. Mark comes in for the careful look. They treat the videos less like fan uploads and more like clues, because Kevin says they contain at least two revelations. Distance matters right away. From high in the arena, the full stage picture could still look like old Yes to a ticket buyer. The keyboard setup does a lot of work. With several instruments arranged in a way that calls back to Rick Wakeman, Geoff Downs could read as a familiar figure from far away. Trevor Horn makes the illusion stranger. He stands where Jon Anderson usually stood, centered in the rotating stage idea fans would remember from the tomato tour. The jacket gets its laugh, too. Mark and Kevin clock Horn's sparkly stage look, but the better point is how much authority the staging borrows from Yes history. Then comes the Anderson question. Kevin imagines Jon hearing that Yes had toured with a dramatic appearing-in-the-middle sequence after wanting something similar himself. It is affectionate speculation, and the joke lands because it comes from fan memory, not from pretending to settle band politics. The chat stays enjoyably picky. Nosebleed seats, hair length, keyboard setup, stage position, and audience perception all turn into clues in a small historical reconstruction. That is the fun here. The Drama lineup is not treated like a footnote. It is treated like a live visual argument for continuity. Housekeeping closes things out, with patrons, social channels, Patreon, and the 2026 Barry Plumber calendar bringing the episode back to familiar Yes Music Podcast rhythm.

As heard by us

A fan-facing look at Drama-era stagecraft that still manages to surprise.

Kevin and Mark use another Drama tour video as a reason to slow the pace and look closely at two consecutive days from the 1980 tour. The episode works best when it stays with the stage setup and how it would have read from a distance, since that is where the clearest…

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Why you'd press play

You want a fresh angle on the Drama tour without wading through a history lecture.

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