Prog rock was about virtuosic excess. It’s a genre that was at odds with rock traditionalists, punks, dance fans and almost every other kind of popular music.
The British band Yes was probably the biggest and most successful — and most tuneful — of prog practitioners. Prog was so universally maligned for being pretentious, drawing on classical models and going on for way too long, that it has achieved its own kind of ultra-cool status: Anything that angers that many people has to be doing something right.
Even the suits, fogies and aging rebels at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were reluctant to acknowledge the movement, failing to induct Yes until earlier this year.
Yes actually had big hits that spanned eras, the dreamy “Roundabout” and the almost robotic-rock of “Owner of A Lonely Heart.” And the band’s iconic album covers of futuristic alien terrain were a perfect fit for the music. The thought of piling a bunch of progsters — members of Yes, Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy, and (the not very prog) Todd Rundgren — onto one bill is hard to imagine, but it’s just the kind of over-the-top more-is-more aesthetic that prog fans will appreciate.
“We are looking forward to presenting songs from each of the first nine studio albums,” says Yes guitarist Steve Howe, pictured, on the Foxwoods website. “Including some surprises.”
The Yestival comes to at the Grand Theater at Foxwoods, 350 Trolley Line Blvd., Mashantucket, Thursday, Aug. 10, 7 p.m. foxwoods.com.
