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.