UPDATE - 4/6@10:13PM: Steve Smith of Journey posted some photos of the seating arrangements at tomorrow's ceremony to his Twitter feed earlier today. It looks like Geddy and Alex will be seated at a table with Joan Baez and Roy Wood of ELO (thanks David J).
Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson will have the honor of inducting Yes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at tomorrow evening's induction ceremony at the Barclays Center in New York. The members of Yes that will be inducted are Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman, Steve Howe, Alan White, Tony Kaye, Trevor Rabin and Chris Squire - whose wife Scottie will be accepting on her late husband's behalf. Ever since Geddy and Alex were confirmed to induct Yes back in January, there has been a lot of speculation as to whether Geddy and/or Alex would possibly perform with the band. We've received some confusing and contradictory information on that subject over the past several weeks. Yes founding member and original vocalist Jon Anderson stated last month in an interview with Billboard.com that Geddy would be sitting in on bass guitar for Yes' performance of Roundabout at the induction ceremony. But a few hours after publishing the story Billboard posted the following update/retraction:
UPDATE: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation sent a statement to Billboard after this story was published denying that Lee would perform at the ceremony. "Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson were only confirmed to do the induction speech for one of their favorite bands and not perform. They, like all the other Yes fans, look forward to honoring them and watching them perform at the induction ceremony on April 7 and the HBO broadcast on April 29."
That Billboard article was posted on March 8th, and doesn't explicitly rule out the possibility of Geddy performing - it just says they were only confirmed to induct the band at that time. Then on March 15th, fans submitted questions to Yes drummer Alan White via the official Yes website and they posted his answers over the past few weeks. Fan Rob Leas asked White whether he'd be playing at the induction and whether Geddy would also be playing. Here's White's reply:
Yes, we will be performing and I do believe Geddy has agreed to play bass for the band. We'll be playing 2 songs that everybody knows. I'm going to New York with a very positive sense of playing together again. It will be a bit of an adventure for everybody but when you put us all in the same room, we all know the songs, so it shouldn't take too long to rehearse them.
Rehearsals for tomorrow's induction ceremony have been taking place at the Barclay's Center today, and earlier this afternoon a couple of photos of Geddy Lee backstage with members of Yes starting appearing online. There was this one of Geddy and current Yes singer Jon Davison, and this one of Geddy and current bassist Billy Sherwood. Then - to put the final nail in the coffin - this photo, and this photo of Geddy playing the Yes classic Roundabout with the band popped up online a couple of hours ago. So at this point it's pretty safe to say that Geddy WILL be playing on at least one song with Yes tomorrow night. I'll be attending the official live simulcast party at the Rock Hall here in Cleveland tomorrow night, which is the only other location to see the live ceremony outside of the Barclays Center. I'll have a separate open thread post up tomorrow afternoon where I'll be giving updates throughout the evening - mainly via Twitter. The other inductors for the 2017 class will be George Harrison's son Dhani Harrison (inducting ELO), Jackson Browne (inducting Joan Baez), Pat Monahan of Train (inducting Journey), Pharrell Williams (inducting Nile Rogers), Neil Young David Letterman (inducting Pearl Jam) and Snoop Dog (inducting Tupac Shakur). Although both the ceremony in New York and the live simulcast party in Cleveland have long since sold out, you can still catch an abridged version of the induction ceremony on HBO on Saturday, April 29th.
Related Posts:
[Alan White on Yes' upcoming Rock Hall induction and the possibility of Geddy Lee performing with the band]
[CORRECTION: Geddy Lee will NOT perform with Yes at the band's 2017 Rock Hall induction]
[Rush to induct Yes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]
[Rush congratulate Yes on their 2017 Rock Hall induction]
