Yes

The cover track of the 1999 album The Ladder, Homeworld (The Ladder) was used in Relic Entertainment's Homeworld real-time strategy as the credits and outro theme. Mardi Gras is the title of a 1972 album by Creedence Clearwater Revival. In 2003 a further remastering effort was begun by Rhino Records, this time including more original art, extensive booklet liner notes, and rare bonus tracks. In Mexico, there are big Carnival celebrations every year in Mazatlan and Veracruz that include the election of a queen and street parades. The initial CD releases appeared in the late 1980s, and the first remasters were released in the mid 1990s, with dramatically improved sound and much original album art restored. The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, Australia, is a well-known pride parade. The Yes Atlantic Records catalog has undergone at least two remasterings and re-releases on CD. Mardi Gras is one of only three exceptions to the Louisiana law (http://www.legis.state.la.us/lss/lss.asp?doc=78402) against wearing hoods and masks in public, the other two being Halloween and religious beliefs.

Sleeve artwork for many of these albums was done by Roger Dean, who also designed the band's logo. There are also Mardi Gras parades in Northern Louisiana in Shreveport, Louisiana by the Krewe of Centaur and the Krewe of Gemini and in Monroe, Louisiana and West Monroe, Louisiana by the Krewe of Janus. The classic line up is currently enjoying a somewhat revitalized presence in the public consciousness, especially after the celebration of their 35th anniversary in 2004. Many small towns and cities throughout southern Louisiana have Mardi Gras parades in the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras day, and particularly on that day. Fans short-changed in 1996 were delighted as Wakeman announced his return to the group in 2002 and a world tour for Yes followed, including a return to Australia after more than 30 years absence. The costumes used in these events are often homemade, emloying sheets, paints, and frequently masks of wire mesh with conical hats. The band was not only backed by a 60-piece orchestra, but specific parts and arrangements were written and executed by the orchestra, sounding as if the orchestra was a permanent band member. These Courir can be witnessed in Church Point, Louisiana, Eunice, Louisiana, Mamou, Louisiana, Ville Platte, Louisiana, and Elton, Louisiana.

Both Sherwood and Khoroshev left the band before the recording of the 2001 orchestral release Magnification. Magnification, the only Yes album without keyboards, is considered by many as the best Yes studio album since the 1970s. In many cases, if the homeowner refuses to give an ingredient, the runners will steal one. The 1999 tour resulted in a live DVD from The House of Blues in Los Angeles. The homeowner will often release the animal and make the runners catch it. While Sherwood's influence seemed to take the band back in the direction of the 90125 lineup, the tour also featured keyboards from Russian keyboard player Igor Khoroshev, who was later made a full time member for the following album The Ladder. The requested homeowner may comply with their wishes, usually by giving some form of vegetable or live animal, such as a chicken or pig, to the members of the run. Open Your Eyes was released in 1997. The townspeople will gather in costume and move from home to home requesting ingredients for the night's meal.

As fans waited for a tour of the classic lineup, Wakeman left the group again before the release of Keys To Ascension 2. Wakeman was replaced by Sherwood, who not only played guitar, but also now handled keyboard duties. In parts of the Cajun country of southwestern Louisiana, the traditional Courir du Mardi Gras (French - Running of the Mardi Gras)is still run, sometimes by maskers on horseback who gather ingredients for making the communal meal. The new studio cuts from those two albums were later reissued on a single CD called "Keystudio.". Without the restrictions on commercial ties to parades of Orleans Parish, there is much advertising and trademark placements on the parades there. The resultant live recordings were released, together with new music, on the Keys To Ascension albums, considered by many fans to be their finest music since their 1970s zenith. Other places in the Greater New Orleans Metro Area also have celebrations; notably the suburb of Metairie, Louisiana has large parades. Proving the truth of the old adage never say "never again," the band surprised and delighted fans by reforming with the classic '70s line-up of Anderson, Squire, White, Howe and Wakeman for a live performance in the Californian town of San Luis Obispo in 1996. Particularly since the inception of the larger parade organizations (sometimes called "super krewes") such as Bacchus and Endymion, it has become fashionable to invite Hollywood and other celebrities to act as Grand Marshals for parades.

On the 1994 tour, guitarist/vocalist Billy Sherwood joined as a sixth member. Though each parade is unique, there are certain common ingredients: 1) either a King or Queen who reigns over the parade, picked from the Krewe membership; 2) gaily colored floats, ridden by Krewe members, who throw various items, including beads, doubloons with the Krewe emblem and often, that year's parade's theme, and assorted other fun items; 3) marching bands, usually from high schools and universities, but often other invited guest bands. In 1994, Yes released Talk, one of the group's poorest selling releases. Most parades, balls and other festivities occur on weeknights and weekends in the 2-week period before Mardi Gras Day. Yes was suddenly back down to its popular 1980s lineup of Anderson, Squire, Rabin, Kaye, and White. Officially, Mardi Gras, more properly called Carnivale, starts at the end of the twelth day of Christmas. After the tour, Bruford quit the band, followed shortly by Howe and then Wakeman. There are as many as 60 Krewes that have parades in the greater New Orleans area.

Featuring tracks spanning the band's entire career, it was one of the highest grossing concert tours of 1991 and 1992. New Orleans traditions include Krewes such as the Krewe du Vieux, the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club, and the famous Rex parade, in addition to Mardi Gras Indians and king cake parties. Law suits were followed by a remarkable turn of events, as Bruford, Wakeman, and Howe joined Anderson and the rest of Yes, which resulted in the album Union and a world tour which united all eight members in a short-lived "mega-Yes". New Orleans developed new traditions, as have other places ever since. While Yes was on break after the 1988 tour, Anderson began working with former Yes members Rick Wakeman, Steve Howe, and Bill Bruford. The group wanted to be called Yes, but Yes was technically still a current group with other members, so the group called themselves "Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe." Legal battles ensued. Mardi Gras came to New Orleans with the earliest French settlers. By the end of the 1980s, Anderson grew tired of the new Yes sound and wanted the band to return to its classic sound. The celebrations draw many tourists to the city in addition to the celebrating locals for the parties and parades.

Yes had major success throughout the rest of the 1980s, playing arenas and scoring major hits with "Leave It," "Love Will Find a Way," and "It Can Happen.". New Orleans Mardi Gras is particularly well-known, often called "the greatest free show on earth". Fans of this line-up are called "Generators", from this line-up's second album, Big Generator. Main article: New Orleans Mardi Gras. The song Owner of a Lonely Heart from this album was even a hit in discos, resulting in the band's only number one single. The Pensacola celebrations also use Moon Pies in combination with beads, coins, and small candies. It was simpler and harder, with modern (for the time) electronic effects. This is probably due to it being geographically near Mobile, Alabama, although other possibilities exist.

The album, 90125 (produced by Trevor Horn), was a radical departure from their earlier sound. Pensacola, Florida is home to the third largest Mardi Gras Celebration in the United States. In late 1982, two years after the breakup of Yes, Squire and White met guitarist Trevor Rabin (late of the band Rabbitt) and formed a new group, initially dubbed Cinema, which also included original Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye. They played Jon Anderson some of their new music, who was very impressed and decided to join the project, thus resulting in the reformation Yes in 1983. Throughout each parade, mystic maskers throw trinkets, beads, candy, coins and Moon Pies, a sweet baked good that combines a graham cracker like crust with marshmallow, and is then covered in a flavored frosting. The band was to be called XYZ, but nothing came of the sessions. This is a special honor, because the 'double-O M's' are the oldest continuous Mardi Gras society in America. Downes and Howe went on to form Asia, Horn went into producing, and Squire and White began sessions with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, fresh from Led Zeppelin's recent breakup. The Mobile Mardi Gras season is always concluded by the Order of Myths parade, produced by the society of the same name.

After the Drama tour, Yes broke up. Celebrations were halted with the American Civil War, but were revived with a parade by Joe Cain in 1866, whose memory is still honored each Carnival. While Drama was well received by many fans (named "Panthers" after a feature of the album's artwork), many other Yes followers missed Anderson's unique lyrics and vocal style. Celebration of Mardi Gras in Mobile dates back to French colonial times. To their surprise, Downes and Horn were invited to join Yes as full-time members; they accepted the invitation and performed on the Drama album in 1980. Mobile, Alabama has perhaps the longest tradition of observed Mardi Gras celebration in the United States, and still celebrates it each year. Eventually though, Howe, Squire and White confessed that their singer and keyboards player had actually left the band. Within the United States, it was originally celebrated by French settlers along the Mississipi coast of the Gulf of Mexico as a series of house parties.

Initally, the plan was that Downes and Horn would help shape the material, ready for the return of Wakeman and Anderson. Lucia and the French West Indies. Howe invited Buggles duo Geoffrey Downes (keyboards) and Trevor Horn (bass/vocals) to help out on a new Yes album. Other Carnivals are held on Aruba, Dominica, Grenada, St. Meanwhile, Howe had heard an album called Age of Plastic by a band called The Buggles which contained the world-wide Number One hit, "Video Killed The Radio Star". The most famous and largest-scale of these is in Trinidad and Tobago. This left Squire, Howe and White to start sessions for a new album without a singer or a keyboard player. In the Caribbean, Carnival is celebrated on a number of islands.

Wakeman had again grown disenchanted with the band, but this time so had Jon Anderson, who was enjoying success out of the band in partnership with Vangelis. See: Brazilian Carnival. In 1980, the band's career took a serious left turn, even by its own standards. In Brazil, the Carnival celebrations in Recife, Olinda, Salvador are well-known, among others. Ironically, Yes outlasted almost all the groups of that era as well. As a result the biggest festival there, the Quebec City Winter Carnival was eventually moved from a lunar calendar, set with Easter in mind, to a solar calendar, and other winter carnivals in Quebec followed suit, abandoning the traditional Christian dates and placing the midwinter celebration at the end of January and the beginning of February, in order to avoid the danger of a late February or early March meltdown of carnival ice sculptures, ice castles and snow trails. The album, along with 1978's Tormato, was successful in spite of being released at the height of the punk rock era in Britain, during which Yes were often critisised by the music press as representing the most bloated excesses of early 1970s progressive rock. In Quebec the Carnival period traditionally coincided with the coldest days of the year when temperatures dropped to forty degrees below zero, linking it to snow and ice sports.

Apart from the 15 minute track, "Awaken," the album Going for the One was mostly made up of shorter songs. Carnival is an important celebration in most of Europe (Especially Southern Europe), and in many parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. However after hearing and being impressed by the new material he once again became a permanent band member. Perhaps the three cities most famous for their Mardi Gras celebrations are New Orleans (whose Carnival has become legendary), Rio de Janeiro (known for having the most ostentatious and licentious Carnival), and Venice (whose Carnival traditions have their roots in pagan times, and were shaped into what they are today during the Renaissance.) Many other places have important Mardi Gras celebrations as well. When Moraz left in 1976, the group commenced sessions for a new album without a keyboard player. After a considerable amount of negotiation Rick Wakeman rejoined the band on a "session musician" basis.
. Following an extended tour through 1975-76, each member of the group released their own solo album. Mardi Gras falls on the following dates in the following years:.

This reached no.1 in the Spanish charts. Like Lent, the date is dependent on that of Easter. Wakeman was replaced by Swiss musician Patrick Moraz for Relayer in 1974. Again, the album featured a side-long track, "The Gates of Delirium," from which the "Soon" section was put out as a limited single release. The date can vary from February 3 to March 9 in non-leap years or February 4 to March 9 in leap years. Rick Wakeman, in particular, was not pleased with the album and increasing interpersonal tensions between him and the rest of the band led Wakeman to quit at the end of the Tales tour. The feast should not be confused with the Polish Fat Thursday. Although extended compositions were by now a Yes hallmark -- the title track of Close To The Edge took up the entire first side of that album -- the four tracks, each roughly 20 minutes long, that comprised the two-disc Topographic Oceans earned mixed reviews and left many feeling that the band was beginning to overreach itself. It is a celebration that is held just before the beginning of the Christian liturgical season of Lent.

Their next studio album, Tales from Topographic Oceans marked a sea change in the band's fortunes, polarising fans and critics alike. Mardi Gras (French for "Fat Tuesday") is the day before Ash Wednesday, and is also called "Shrove Tuesday", the final day of Carnival (pronounced "CAR-nuh-vul" in English; "car-nee-VAHL" in most Romance languages – and in New Orleans, Lousiana, because of its French heritage). The album was another best seller. 2014 - March 4. Presented in one of the most lavish album packages to date, Roger Dean's artwork spread across a triple gatefold cover, and continued the cosmic-organic design concepts of the two previous albums. 2013 - February 12. It was one of the first rock triple-album sets, featuring live versions of all-original material from the previous three studio albums. 2012 - February 21.

Yessongs was a hugely ambitious project and undoubtedly a major gamble for their label, Atlantic Records. 2011 - March 8. Shortly after the release of Close To The Edge, at the height of the band's success, Bill Bruford stunned fans with the news that he was quitting to join King Crimson; he was replaced by former Plastic Ono Band drummer Alan White who debuted on their next release, the three-record live collection Yessongs, recorded on their world tour in late 1972 and early 1973. 2010 - February 16. Fans of this era commonly describe themselves as "Troopers", after the 3-part track "Starship Trooper" from The Yes Album. 2009 - February 24. Some consider the album Close to the Edge to be the high point of the whole progressive rock genre. 2008 - February 5.

Fragile also marked the beginning of a long collaboration with artist Roger Dean, who designed the group's logo and their album covers, as well as their light shows. 2007 - February 20. They also notably benefitted from the tremendous advances in live music technology that were taking place at that time, and they were renowned for the high quality of both their sound and lighting. 2006 - February 28. Yes enjoyed enormous commercial and critical success around the world and became one of the most popular concert attractions of the day. Fragile (1971) went Top Ten in America, and Close to the Edge (1972) was also a huge seller.

With Wakeman on board, Yes entered what some consider their most fertile and successful period, cutting two highly acclaimed LPs. It was both the end of one era -- their last non-original track -- and the beginning of another, showcasing all the elements of the new Yes sound in place. The first recording by this 'classic' lineup of the group (Anderson, Bruford, Howe, Squire and Wakeman) was a dynamic ten-minute interpretation of Paul Simon's America. Surrounded by banks of keyboards, his flowing blonde hair and sequinned cape provided a strong visual focus on stage, although they later became the object of ridicule in some quarters.

He also brought two vital new additions to the group's instrumentation -- the Mellotron and the Minimoog synthesiser. As a soloist, Wakeman proved to be a perfect foil for Steve Howe. He was replaced by classically trained Rick Wakeman, who had just left The Strawbs and was already a noted studio musician with credits including David Bowie and Lou Reed. In 1971 original keyboard player Tony Kaye left to form his own group, Badger.

The group's emerging style coalesced on their next LP, the critically acclaimed The Yes Album, which for the first time consisted entirely of original compositions by the band; it was also the record that united them with long-serving producer and engineer Eddie Offord; his studio expertise was a key factor in creating the Yes sound. The departure of Peter Banks in 1970 and his replacement by ex-Tomorrow guitarist Steve Howe gave Yes a new edge. Their first two Yes LPs (recorded with the lineup of Anderson, Banks, Bruford, Kaye and Squire) mixed original material with covers of songs by their major influences, including The Beatles, The Byrds and Simon & Garfunkel. The rhythm section of Squire and Bruford was considered by many to be one of the best in rock music at this time.

Squire was one of the first rock bass players to successfully adapt electronic guitar effects such as tremolo, phasing and the wah-wah pedal to the instrument. The most recognisable sonic features of this 'classic' period are Anderson's distinctive high-register lead vocals, their strong vocal harmonies, Wakeman and Howe's respective keyboard and guitar solos, Bruford's polyrhythmic drumming and the distinctive sound of Squire's Rickenbacker model 4001 stereo bass. Vocal verses alternated with atmospheric instrumental interludes, frenetic ensemble passages and extended guitar, keyboard and bass improvisations. Their repertoire often exceeded the standard three-minute pop-song structure with lengthy multi-part suites lasting 20 minutes or more.

These albums feature complex classically-influenced arrangements, unusual time signatures, virtuoso musicianship, dramatic dynamic and metrical changes and oblique, stream-of-consciousness lyrics. The early 1970s Yes recordings are still considered the classic Yes sound by many fans. Keep in mind that Yes was split up in 1981 and 1982. The following explains the different lineups of Yes.

Rick Wakeman, on the other hand, has joined and left the band at least four times. Founding members Jon Anderson and Chris Squire are often considered the core of the band since Squire has performed on all official Yes albums and Anderson has performed on all but one. Despite many lineup changes, occasional splits and many changes in popular music, the band has endured for over 30 years and still retains a strong international following. The popular music group Yes is a progressive rock band that formed in London in 1968.

Projected live retrospective CD box set. 2005