Perhaps some good news for Yes fans

If, like me, you've been disappointed by many of the recent releases (apart from the surround mixes), they seem to have found a bunch of additional live tapes from the 1972 Yessongs tour:
 
http://www.yesworld.com/2015/03/yes-progeny-live-from-seventy-two/
 

Two Live Collections Debut Newly Discovered Recordings From The Prog-Rock Pioneer’s Acclaimed 1972 World Tour

Double-Disc, Triple-LP, And 14-Disc Boxed Set Available in May from Rhino

Yes was firing on all cylinders in the fall of 1972. The prog-rock pioneers’ fifth studio album Close To The Edge was a smash success as audiences around the world packed arenas to see the legendary group perform. The band captured the magic of that tour on its first live album, Yessongs. Released in 1973, the triple-LP sold over a million copies and blew minds with Roger Dean’s iconic artwork.

The band recently discovered recordings of seven complete concerts from the weeks leading up to the shows heard on Yessongs. The latest audio technology was used to restore the reel-to-reel recordings and bring out incredible sonic detail, creating an open, immediate sound that drops listeners right into the front row.

Rhino has assembled three new releases featuring previously unreleased music included on these newly discovered tapes.

craigb
Amazing how all these older bands tend to "find" leftover music of theirs, isn't it? 

Indeed. Particularly when their careers aren't cruising along quite like they used to. 
 
But I am always happy to hear live recordings from back in the glory days even if they aren't just exactly perfect.
 
It's also become rather popular for older bands to just give up on new music and become tribute acts of their former selves, at least for a tour or two.

I really liked "Fly From Here" which I thought was the best since Relayer but "Heaven and Earth" left me cold.

Hopefully these "found" live tapes will be more than a curio.

It's expensive, but since most of it looks to be Canadian shows, I'm in. 

So this finally came out Yesterday () and I thought I'd mention some thoughts on it as I'm listening to it.
 
I (naturally) got the 14 disc version with 7 complete (I think) shows. The details are available in the thread's first post and here:
 
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U2MZU9C
 
but the basics are it's seven shows from between 10/31/72 and 11/20/72 which were originally recorded for and make up most of the Yessongs album. It comes in sort of a recipe box kind of thing with seven separate 2-disc sleeves for each of the seven shows and a booklet inside. The artwork is new Roger Dean variations on the classic Yessongs artwork and some of Dean's pictures of the band from 1973.
 
The first thing to note is that each of the set lists are identical:
 
Firebird Suite/Siberian Khatru
I've Seen All Good People
Mood For A Day/Clap
Heart of the Sunrise
And You And I
 
Close to the Edge
Excerpts from "The Six Wives of Henry VIII"
Roundabout
Yours Is No Disgrace (the encore)
 
The only difference is on some nights Mood For A Day/Clap and HOTS were transposed and Steve sometimes played his two acoustic pieces in different order. And if you are familiar with the original Yessongs, you will notice that Perpetual Change and Long Distance Runaround/The Fish (including Chris' epic bass solo) are missing. On Yessongs those songs came from a previous tour when Bruford was still on drums and apparently they weren't played on this tour. Also missing is Starship Trooper which was on the Yessongs album and Steve's solo was featured during the closing credits of the Yessongs film, which was filmed in a London in 12/72.
 
There's also a 2 disc version available that combines different performances from these 7 shows into one:
 
http://www.amazon.com/Progeny-Highlights-From-Seventy-Two-2CD/dp/B00U39G62E
 
 
First of all since we're talking seven identical setlists, the 14 disc set is not for casual fans. This being Yes, the differences are about what you'd expect, meaning not profound differences but night to night variations of the same pieces - big and obvious to those of us who know the music intimately but others probably wouldn't care. And since you get each version from seven concerts, they didn't have to choose between "most consistent overall" vs. editing the best bits from each version of a song together. Basically it's alternate versions of the Yessongs performances and in line with the differences between the album and film performances of the same songs.
 
And according to the liner notes, unlike the original Yessongs which featured some of the edits and overdubs common with commercially released "live" albums, there are only "two brief edits to repair these performances" here. So, for instance, we get both differing and less concise versions of Six Wives that sometimes include Rick's problems with his various keyboards - like his Tron picking up a local radio station one night and one of his two Mini Moogs not functioning on another. And of course any time there's a Moog part anywhere it sounds a little different every night because he had to program them on the fly. There are of course also some of the normal live performance execution issues and a few inevitable "oops" moments too.  Needless to say, no Autotune here either.
 
In terms of recording quality, though generally much better sounding than the Yessongs album or film, it's still far from perfect. For instance Steve's acoustic guitar solo performances sound like you'd expect from stage mics rather than a recording studio, and on one of them the sound changes really radically (!) in the middle for some reason. Sometimes there is also significant distortion and noises, but this is the exception not the rule and they clearly made the best of what they had to work with and left what they couldn't fix in rather than scrap a whole performance for something.
 
The mix is interesting in that Steve is panned hard left and Rick hard right (oddly, even during their solos!). This makes it sound very different from what we're used to on a commercial release. Sometimes it made the band sound a bit disembodied to me, but I also liked it quite a bit during other parts. And you get to hear what Rick is doing where he would otherwise be buried. It also fits with the vibe of this set - which is kind of "historical recordings of a band" rather than the "clean, produced, (mostly, kinda, sorta) live album" that most commercially released live recordings tend to be.
 
Overall, as one of the people it was clearly intended for, I'm thrilled to hear it. I wish there were more official releases of historical recordings, even if everything is not always just exactly perfect.

Karyn
That was a really great review Drew,  almost made me want to go out and buy it, but I'll stick with beautiful triple gate-fold I have locked away.

Some albums are worth keeping. Along with this would be the original foldout Hawkwind cover for the double LP "Space Ritual". Very neat! Or Walter Wegmuller's Tarot, with a small deck inside. Or a Faust LP that is clear plastic and cover!
 

I just remember that physical products required packaging, which required shelf space, which required boxes, which required storage, which is still costing me an arm and a leg until I can get rid of all my physical stuff!

Thanks Drew...
 
It's from '72... I'm not even going to look at what tracks are on that collection, it is a must have for me (both sets of CD's) ... Sticking it on my Christmas list now...........

Hi,
 
While I do not dislike the stuff they are bringing us on that set, I'm really sad.
 
I've heard bootlegs of a couple of "TFTO" and they were very good, but obviously Chris Squire doesn't like them, or does not wish to give Jon any more credit than he already gets. OR, a bootleg of YES doing stuff from "Relayer", with Patrick Moraz, and I have no idea where that was from, but the long cut was actually better than the stuff on the album that in the Steve Howe parts, actually sounded a bit strange and out of control and just completely unrehearsed and designed. This was by comparison to that one bootleg, which had bad sound quality, but the music was very good to my ears!
 
It's sad. It kinda says that Chris does not like Patrick and will not give him a cent, and Patrick still says he never got anything from YES, and was considered a hired hand for food, water and a kick in the ash! I'm actually thinking that Chris probably thinks that Patrick's ability to replace Rick Wakeman was too difficult and did not come out as well as one hoped. The bootleg only had Roundabout, otherwise, which any decent band can do even these days!
 
I find that kind of stuff sad, disrespectful to the artists involved, and it was the reason why I never bought another album after "Relayer", after hearing what happened. And I found some of the stuff they did later totally overblown and not that good. There were many European bands doing way better by that time!

drewfx1
 
Without getting into too much detail regarding "unofficial" releases...
...
That said, I would of course welcome any additional official releases of classic live recordings. And supposedly Steve is the one who may have tapes in his personal archives, not Chris.

 
What I found specially sad, was that TRANSATLANTIC could do an excellent part of TFTO and YES can't. And I would like to see a sampling that is less concentrated on the "hits" ... because there is a lot of music in this band that I was not the only person that appreciated it.
 
I lost a lot of care and respect for many of them, when Rick Wakeman started trashing TFTO after he left YES. Nowadays he is a bit kinder about it, after seeing how others have come to love it, but in the end, as an artist, there is nothing to dislike or not appreciate about your earlier work ... it was a part of you, and it is a part of you, and if you think that 10% of you is trash and bad, what makes you think that I am supposed to still like him, or his work? I find more than 10% of his solo albums as very pretentious and uppitty class over blown stuff ... very inflated by the ego, and gave up on it after the second album!
 
A band, to me, is a "composer" ... you and I may like different songs and pieces, but it's still BAch, Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky and what not. I have my preferences for some of the work by YES and I appreciate the "artist", but found it really hard to see them give creedence to lousy pop music reviewers that wanted another hit, and not a piece of music, that you and I would consider more important and valuable in terms of music history and the development of rock music, than just ... another song that will be forgotten tomorrow!
 
I don't understand, why so much of the "populist" ideals are intent on bringing rock music down to the pedestrian level ... all music has the ability to be better ... but it will never be appreciated until the attitudes change, and it starts with us!