UPDATE - 4/1@6:17PM: APRIL FOOLS!! As you likely all have figured out by now, today is April Fools' Day and this post is - unfortunately (fortunately?) - a joke. Full disclosure, I am a big fan of ELO and had an enormous crush on Olivia Newton-John at age 10 when the Xanadu film came out (I saw it in the theater). So I would have LOVED to see this happen for real. I mean ... seeing ONJ sing the line, "Oh, I will dine on honey dew, and drink the milk of Paradise", would have been epic. Oh well. Anyways, I hope everyone enjoyed the joke. :)
Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson will have the honor of inducting Yes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at this coming Friday'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. 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 (inducting Pearl Jam) and Snoop Dog (inducting Tupac Shakur). Yes founding member and original vocalist Jon Anderson caused a bit of confusion a few weeks ago when he stated in an interview with Billboard.com that Geddy Lee would be sitting in on bass guitar for Yes's performance of Roundabout at the induction ceremony. This garnered a great deal of excitement from Rush and Yes fans alike, but unfortunately 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."
Although Geddy won't be performing with YES, according to this article from Billbored.com posted late yesterday, he and bandmate Alex Lifeson will be teaming up with 2017 inductee Jeff Lynn and ELO, along with special guest Olivia Newton-John for a very unique version of Rush's Xanadu mashed up with ELO's Xanadu from the 1980 film of the same name starring Olivia Newton-John. Judging by some rehearsal footage that has emerged online (watch below), Geddy and Newton-John will be trading off on vocal duties. In the footage, Geddy sings this line from ELO's Xanadu:
A place where nobody dared to go
The love that we came to know
They call it ...
They then both sing the word Xanadu (drawing it out as in the Rush version), then Olivia Newton-John chimes in with this Rush lyric:
To stand within The Pleasure Dome
Decreed by Kubla Khan
To taste anew the fruits of life
The last immortal man
To find the sacred river Alph
To walk the caves of ice
Oh, I will dine on honey dew
And drink the milk of Paradise
More information as we learn it.
