Wonderous Songs, Wonderous Stories From Jon Anderson at the Rio Theatre

It's hard to say what made a bigger impression at Yes singer Jon Anderson's first show in Santa Cruz Thursday night at the Rio Theater, his songs or his stories.

Both were revelatory. How many other lead singers could even pull it off? Could Mick Jagger? Probably. Bowie? Definitely. Plant? Yeah. But the list doesn't run much longer than that.

Anderson in fronting a band that plays music in orchestral layers with long instrumental passages had a tougher mountain to climb. Yes is a group of stellar musicians whose songs stretch to 10, 20, or 30 minutes and even the shorter ones have layers and layers of keyboards, guitars, harmonies and rhythm.

He solved the problem of filling in for missing bandmates in a variety of ways. He turned "I've Seen All Good People" into a singalong, with the audience carrying one section while he sang the other on top.

"Long Distance Runaround" became part of a piano jazz foray, stretching the song like Silly Putty into something new. You could imagine Mose Allison covering it like that.  Perhaps the biggest surprise was the ending passages of "Starship Trooper," those powerful chords and lead guitar that would bring me out of a coma and lift my spirits everytime I hear them.

He played one part on acoustic guitar while singing a variation on the lead guitar lines that Steve Howe plays. It worked better than anyone could have expected.

Some songs, such as "Wonderous Stories" and "And You and I," could be played pretty much like on the albums with voice and guitar. But then, he did vocal pyrotechnics to cover the band's biggest radio hit, "Owner of a Lonely Heart" singing layers of parts himself, with no special effects.

He wandered from guitar to ukelele to a Chinese stringed instrument and piano. He also covered songs from a rare 1976 solo album, Olias of Sunhollow, on which he played every instrument. Over the Internet he met some young Phildelphia musicians who loved the album so much they are recording their own version of it, and he agreed to sing on it.

There were plenty of great stories. He talked about getting turned on to marijuana for the first time when Robert Plant offered him a "crazy" cigarette, when Plant's band Listen was opening for a band Anderson had with his brother in a club.

Up to then, Anderson's experience with grass had been on the farm where he milked and cleaned up after cows.

He laughed at his own success and excess, recalling how in 1984, when Yes had its biggest hit album and was touring the world, he saw one of the 30 roadies handling 40 tons of equipment who did nothing but run around and get high all day.

When he asked the road manager what that guy's job was, he was told that this roadie was assigned to wake up bassist Chris Squire every day at 10 a.m.

"We were paying a guy just to wake Chris up?" The fame breezed by fast, he said. Then there was the audition of the Greek keyboardist Vangelis who was considered as a replacement for Rick Wakeman in Yes.

Anderson said he'd do what he could to get Vangelis to try out, even fly his Rolls Royce from Paris to London. But the idea fell apart when Vangelis, while playing with the band, told guitarist Steve Howe that the electric guitar wasn't a real instrument.

Poof. That was no way to join a band.

The night's biggest revelation was just how deep his catalog is. He played for two hours and unlike many other classic rockers, the old songs weren't better than the new ones. His newer and rare collaborations with all kinds of artists stood up well against the Yes songs which everyone knows by heart.

He's an artist who is continually growing, one who isn't afraid to admit to spirituality and one who chooses music over playing the hits in sheds night after night to supplement unlimited bank accounts.

This night showed he is far more than a singer, but a musician and songwriter who deserves to be taken more seriously than he is.

In other words, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that admits the Beastie Boys but spurns Yes isn't really a hall of fame. It's a hall of shame.

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