It is the first album with former session member Billy Sherwood on guitar, and the only one on which he also plays keyboards.
Personnel
Vocals
Percussion
Guitars, Vocals
Bass, Vocals
Keyboards, Guitars
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Onward 1995-97 - From Perpetual Change by David Watkinson
His key influence was classical music, partly due to its virtuosity but also because Khoroshev was restricted in his choice of western music. When he finally heard Relayer and discovered YES, at the age of fifteen, he was completely overwhelmed, deciding that he had to expand his musical knowledge and style and ultimately, decamp to the West.
Igor also found work at IBM, hired to create music for computer games by a man named Carl Jacobson, who shared his interest in progressive rock bands like Rush and YES. Carl was doing some work for Jon Anderson at the time and thought that Jon should hear this new, exciting keyboard talent. Jacobson passed Jon a tape of Igor’s performance, but it was only when YES needed a new keyboard player that he actually listened to it. Realising Igor had potential, Jon invited him to audition. The Russian played the whole of ‘The Revealing Science of God‘, then broke into more YES tracks before the band stopped him in full flight. His sheer skill and flamboyance struck everyone immediately, and Igor was inaugurated as the new keyboard player in time for the recording of the next album Open Your Eyes and the promotional tour that followed in September 1997. Fans accepted him into the fold straight away, struck by his talent.
Open Your Eyes – originally announced under its working titles of Universal Garden, or just plain YES – was originally a joint project of Chris and Billy, effectively a Chris Squire Experiment album. However, as the project slowly came together, everyone was asked to participate and it gradually transformed into the next YES album.
The album was a more commercial venture than anything YES had ever released before. All eleven tracks were seen as potential single releases. The ‘big’ production, with its profusion of overdubs, sounded like a fusion of the West Coast fell of Big Generator and the upbeat Union. Highlights included ‘From the Balcony‘, ‘Universal Garden‘, ‘The Solution‘ and ‘Open Your Eyes‘ – the title track that the record label, Eagle, hope would provide the first YES hit single in the thirteen years since ‘Owner of a lonely Heart‘. Hopes were dashed, however, when neither the single nor the album – which sold respectably, in excess of 200,000 copies – proved to be a runaway commercial success. Added to this, the feelings of Jon and Steve regarding the merits (or otherwise) of converting a solo album into a YES album at breakneck speed have been well-documented – their contributions were added late, and it showed.
Though Open Your Eyes was seen as a filler album by many, the subsequent promotional tour was a definite high point – concentrating on vintage YES classics, more than the new album, and selling out medium-sized (3-5000-seater) venues every night. Jon recalls, “To perform ‘The Revealing‘ on stage was like, ‘Take a deep breath guys, we are going to do it,’ and it sounded great. Topographic Oceans was damn good. It was amazing and I felt so proud that we could turn round 25 years later and perform that piece and say this is good music. I don’t care what anybody said at that time, I don’t care what Rick said, I don’t care what management said, I don’t care what record companies said, this was good music. It still holds together today.”‘
Excerpted from David Watkinson’s ‘Perpetual Change‘.
Lyrics