San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune
Wednesday. March 6, 1996

Yes has
new fans:
merchants
of SLO

Band brings plenty to
see them, and they
spend lots of money

   By Carol Roberts
   Telegram-Tribune


  SAN LUIS OBISPO - The biggest
Yes fans could turn out to be the
motel and restaurant owners here
who are playing host this week to
hundreds of concertgoers from all
over the United States and Canada.
  Eddie Lee, who became a fan as a
kid in Hong Kong, came all the way
from Honolulu.
  Erich Toll, who makes education
al films, flew from Boulder, Colo. He
brought along his wife and son and
picked up his mother in Los Ange-
les. "Thanks to Yes, my son is
getting to visit with Grandma," he
said.
  Paul Seale, a lawyer from Vancou-
ver, B.C., arrived Tuesday with his
wife, Sheryl, a Canadian "Mountie."
just to see the rock group.
  Lee, who manages a small compa-
ny on Oahu, was staying at the
Lamplighter Inn and looking for-
ward to getting together with other
fans he*s met for dinner at 1865
Restaurant.
  Toll and his family were staying
at the Apple Farm. The Seales Were
booked into the Madonna Inn. They
were enjoying the decor.
  "We cracked up at our fluorescent
green room," Paul Seale said. "It*s
really quite a place."
  All were among the fans who
crowded into the Coffee Merchant
downtown Tuesday to see where
they  would be seated for last night*s
and tonight*s concerts at the Fre-
mont. They paid $55 a seat, ordered
through a Yes magazine, the Inter-
net or a Yes newsletter.
  They bought their tickets but
didn*t know where they*d sit until
their names were drawn out of a
hopper by three men who had told
fans far and wide about the perform-
ances.
  Mike Tiano, who works for Micro-
soft in Seattle, manages the main
Yes fan magazine on the Internet.
Glenn Gottlieb of Long Island puts
out a slick Yes magazine from there
and Nic Caciappo of Modesto edits a
Yes newsletter. They handed out a
block of 150 tickets for Tuesday*s
concert that had been ordered
through the Internet, their maga-
zine and newsletter.

  The fans at the Coffee Merchant
not only planned to sleep and dine
locally, they were eager to do some
sightseeing and visit downtown
shops.
  "This sure looks like a real tourist
town now," said Seale, who was
here from Canada about a decade
ago. "I like it so well, I*ve picked up
some real estate tabs to look at
homes."
  Some of the fans hosts at local
restaurants and motels knew of Yes,
but were more excited about the
influx of guests than the rock group.
  "Yes was a little before my time."
said Tom Sherwood, the 23-year-old
desk clerk at the Lamplighter.
  John Fayre, a bartender at 1865.
said he was a fan in the 1970s, but
had no plans to attend the concerts.
  Larry Ward, the president of
Heritage Oaks Bank in the county,
said ne first saw Yes in Denver in
1974. He lamented Tuesday that pre-
vious plans would keep him from the
concerts here. But the bank, he said,
has done a little something for the
group.
  Heritage Oaks was scheduled to
open its second San Luis Obispo
branch in a leased building on Santa
Rosa Street soon. Yes has been using
the building, owned by Rob Rossi and
others in the Santa Rosa Group, to
record an album tor the past few
weeks.

   Yes wants it for three more weeks,
Ward said, so the bank has agreed to
wait until after that to start its
remodeling.

   Yes fans are nothing if not accom-
modating.

   "We*re good guests, said Eric
Melleby. a postal worker who came
from Dayton Ohio, for Tuesday*s
concert. "We*re friendly. We*re clean.
We*re sober . We just love the music.

[photo caption:  GETS HIS SEAT: Luke Rauch plays 
a kazoo for other Yes fans Tuesday at the Coffee  
Merchant when his name is picked in a drawing 
for concert seats.]