One of my guilty secrets is that I still have a fondness for the band Yes, who were the first band I ever saw play live, and although Jayne can’t stand them she indulges me and yesterday bought me their 35th anniversary DVD set as a present.

So I now have a VHS of Yessongs plus 7 DVDs of them live, to go with the 16 or so albums on CD and vinyl, and yet I am not obsessive about them. I remember at school there was a boy who had all the Genesis albums and had started to collect solo albums by Steve Hackett, Brand X, and other projects by band members, and I remember the brother of an ex-girlfriend who tried to collect everything Bowie did, including Japanese imports and everything. That is obsessive.

I doubt if anyone could be obsessive enough to collect everything to do with Yes though. Its enough just to get all 24 ‘normal’ albums and the two AWBH albums, but then it gets complicated. The 5 current members of the band have released something like 130 solo albums between them – nearly a hundred of them are from Rick Wakeman alone! Then there are all the other bands they have played with, or collaborations, or albums they have guested on, and then there are all the other people who have been in the band over the 35 years – Billy Sherwood, Bill Bruford, Geoff Downes, Patrick Moraz, Trevor Horn, Igor Khoroshev…

Me? I don’t even have Tales From Topographic Oceans!

Its a funny old band really. Virtually unknown amongst younger people (Jayne had never heard of them until she met me) but they sell out large venues still. They have released a steady stream of albums, although nothing new since Magnification in 2002, but a large proportion of fans only want to keep hearing the old stuff. And the old stuff keeps coming as they seem to release a DVD of every tour, each set list having a slightly different selection of old tunes on it.

Which reminds me. They have a box set of 3 CDs of various live recordings coming out in September, going all the way back to them playing the John Peel show in 1970. I wonder if I should start dropping birthday hints now?