A Wonderful 2008!

I desire a new year full of happiness to all Yes fans!
A tour by Yes wouldn't be a bad present...

Thanks for all the support, the nice commentaries and the many downloads...

1989 - Anderson, Bruford,Wakeman & Howe - Birmingham

October 24th, 1989 - Birmingham, England
Venue/City: National Exhibition Centre,
Source: Soundboard

In the late 80s, Jon Anderson was pretty tired of the Trevor Rabin dominated Yes. As described Steve:
Jon called and asked me if I thought it was the right time to start working together again. Speaking to him, I felt pretty instantly that something good could be gotten out of it. Certainly, that's what I'd hoped for, since Jon and I had always had a lot of fun writing together. (...) Jon's creative powers and imagination are quite enormous, so they need to be listened to like everybody else's ideas. When Jon spoke to me, he was calling Wakeman and Bruford as well. He got the same feedback from them that we could do it. At the first meeting we just talked about it, then we took it to the next stage by collaborating on the songs.
This way, ABWH was born. They released an album with new material (described by Bill: They're essentially Jon's songs. I had very little to do with them. I thought that Jon was on strong form for that album, yes, I thought he was on strong form.) and then they started touring.
To replace Mr. Squire on bass, the famous Tony Levin (who played with King Crimson, Peter Gabriel and more hundreds of people) was chosen. Steve says: He was a very logical and wonderful choice because of his association with Bill. We'd all admired im tremendously. The bass department was vacant, and Tony was a marvelous choice.
Did Tony replace Chris well? Many say yes, I have to say no. He's an accomplished and respected bassist, but he's not suited to Yes style. This concert here, from 1989, shows many things, and one of them is Squire's decisive role in Yes music, more evident when he's not around. Other complaints I do are about Rick's and Bill's modern timbres... Some keyboards have a rather new-age feeling that doesn't fit well in songs like Starship Trooper. I'm glad Rick would return to his moog in the 90s! Bill uses some electronic drums in Close to the Edge that spoilthe experience of finally hearing him playing this song live...
Sorry but I can't help being critic about ABWH. To counterbalance my opinion, I'll quote a review by Prosciutto, in Progarchives:
The performances on most of the songs are great specially on the ABWH numbers which are the highlights (...) About the Yes songs, the standout is without doubt Close to the Edge, this epic never had sounded so bombastic and powerful before, in addition the vocal performance of Jon Anderson is incredibly inspired, I think this is the definitive version of Close to the Edge. The rest of the Yes numbers are just OK.

ABWH are:
Jon Anderson > Vocals
Bill Bruford > Drums
Steve Howe > Guitars
Rick Wakeman > Keyboards
Julian Colbeck > Keyboards
Tony Levin > Bass
Milton McDonald > Guitars

Setlist:
Disc 1:
1. Time and a word / Owner of a lonely heart / Teakbois
2. Clap
3. Mood for a day
4. Wakeman Solo
5. Long distance runaround/Drum Solo
6. Birthright
7. And you and I
8. All good people
9. Close to the Edge
Disc 2:
1. Themes / Bruford-Levin duet
2. Brother of mine
3. The meeting
4. Heart of the sunrise
5. Order of the universe
6. Roundabout
7. Starship trooper

(some interviews quoted from Notes From The Edge)
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2006 - Steve Howe in New York

BB King's Blues Club
NYC
14 de Abril, 2006

In 2006, with Yes inactive, Steve Howe did some small shows, only he and his guitars.
This one here shows well the intimity feeling between him and the public. He talks a lot, about his blues influences, his limited ability to write lyrics, etc.
Besides, he plays some rare tunes, like songs from Natural Timbre and also Nine Voices (from The Ladder)

Kohno Spanish classical guitar:
01 Pre-show music 10:26
02 Applause 00:48
03 Surface Tension 04:37
04 The Ancient excerpt 04:39
05 The Little Galliard (Dowland) 01:48
06 Corkscrew 03:58
07 Classical Gas 03:37
08 Talking points 01:51
09 J's Theme 04:08
10 Concerto In D 2nd Mvt (Vivaldi) 02:28
11 Mood For A Day 03:52

Scharpach custom 12-string:
12 Winter from 4 Seasons (Vivaldi) 03:15
13 Masquerade 02:25
14 And You And I intro > Turn Of The Century outro 03:21
15 more stories 02:05
16 Sketches In The Sun 04:25

Portuguese 12-string:
17 Nine Voices 04:02

(intermission)

Martin 6-string steel cutaway:
01 Intro 02:09
02 In The Course Of The Day 04:30
03 To Be Over 07:18
04 Ram 04:01
05 Goin' Down This Road (Broonzy) 03:22
06 Intersection Blues 02:35
07 Merl Travis quotes 02:06
08 Second Initial 03:41

Line 6 Variax electric:
09 A Drop In The Ocean 02:42
10 variax demos 02:16
11 Whispering (Coburn, Rose & Schoenberger; arrangement: Atkins) 02:48
12 Dorothy 02:55
13 Meadow Rag 03:32

Fender lap steel:
14 Soon 08:25

Portuguese 12-string:
15 Your Move 03:35

encore:
Martin 6-string steel cutaway:
16 Clap 05:10

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REUPLOADED: 1969 – Live at Belgium

27 October 1969 – Amougies Festival

Bootlegs of Yes in their original formation are rare and few. This is one of those.

First, with the exception of "Then", they only play covers, including the rarely played "It's Love" from The Rascals which extensively features Chris Squire on vocals and bass (there is a version from Yes Album tour on the box The Word Is Live).

The show has the only live version I know of I See You, containing Pater Banks' long guitar solo that has been so much commented and considered by Jon one of the reasons he was fired from the band (Jon thought the solo was too long... I don't think he could dream of “Tales” at the time...).

Of course, Yes went on to make great music, arguably better and more accomplished, but there's a wildness and freedom to their early incarnation that was never seen later.

Lastly, the usual reminder about the sound quality - the tape recorder used was way below modern standards and the sound is nowhere near "professional" quality. This reservation aside, however, this is an unbelievable document of a legendary festival!

1-No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed (Havens) (4:53)
2-Tuning problems (4:43)
3-Then (Anderson) (5:32)
4-It's Love (Cavaliere/Brigati) (14:39)
5-Everydays (Stills) (5:43)
6-I See You (McGuinn/Crosby) (14:24)
7-Something's Coming (Bernstein/Sondheim) (10:19)

Recommended for fans of early Yes

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1978 - UK

Out of the Blue - Live in Riviera Theatre, Chicago, Illinois, USA
20th July, 1978
Soundboard Recording

Lineup:
Eddie Jobson: Electric Violin, Keyboards and Electronics
Allan Holdsworth: Guitar
Bill Bruford: Drums & Percussion
John Wetton: Vocals & Bass

This band started in late 1976 when Wetton called Bruford to play in a band with Rick Wakeman. They rehearsed for 6 weeks before Wakeman left the projected band and re-joined YES for the "Going for the One" album.Bruford and Wetton wanted to carry on playing together, so Wetton invited Jobson, who was playing with Frank Zappa.He didn`t join them very soon because he had some work to do with Zappa`s band. Bruford recorded his first solo album "Feels Good to Me" in mid 1977, with Holdsworth (who had played with Soft Machine, Gong and Jean Luc Ponty) on guitar. When Wetton, Jobson and Bruford finally were rehearsing together, Bruford invited Holdsworth to the new band called "U.K.". They recorded this first album between December 1977 and January 1978. They toured during 1978, until they started to have problems due to different ideas about the musical style for the band: Bruford and Holdsworth wanted a more jazz- rock style for the band, while Wetton and Jobson wanted a more Pop-Rock (in the case of Wetton) and Prog Rock (in the case of Jobson) style for the band.
I think that the most interesting thing in this band, apart of the music played by these four very good musicians, is Bruford`s drums and percussion playing, with a lot of changes in time signatures and very good technique.Holdsworth has his most interesting playing in the songs "In the Dead of Night", "Thirty Years", "Nevermore" and "Mental Medication". He is a superb virtuoso guitarrist, who doesn't have many places to shine here, but when he's on the spotlight he's excellent. For the most part, Jobson is the main musician with his keyboards. Wetton plays his bass as good as usual, singing very good too.
(Parts quoted from Guillermo Vázquez, in http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=1360)

Setlist:
01: The Only Thing She Needs
02: Carrying No Cross
03: The Sahara Of Snow
04: Thirty Years
05: By The Light Of Day
06: Presto Vivace
07: In Dead Of Night
08: Caesar's Palace Blues

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2007 - Fragile & Steve Howe

Live at Tilburg (2007-10-30)

Howe has been collaborating again with Yes tribute band Fragile. He was with them for Oct 2007 dates in the UK, Netherlands and Belgium on their 10th anniversary tour. Jon's voice is hard to match, but musically this is a great act. My favourite here is the medley "A Venture-South Side of the Sky", as A Venture was never played live by Yes.

Fragile opened with a set (including "The Revealing Science of God"), followed by a solo acoustic set from Howe, and then a joint set. The joint set included "A Venture", "South Side of the Sky" and "Gates of Delirium" (end section and into "Soon").


Setlist:
Fragile
01 - Intro and opening firebird
02 - Perpetual change
03 - Revealing science of god
04 - Owner of a lonely heart
05 - Close to the edge
06 - Introduction to Steve howe

Steve Howe
07 - Howe solo - Second Initial
08 - Howe solo - In The Course Of The Day
09 - Howe solo - Intersection Blues
10 - Howe solo - Masquerade
11 - Howe solo - Ram
12 - Howe solo - Clap
(change the names of the songs, they are all named simply "Howe solo")

Steve Howe and Fragile
13 - Siberian Khatru
14 - A Venture - South side of the sky
15 - Soon solo
16 - Starship Trooper
17 - Roundabout

(partially quoted from http://www.bondegezou.demon.co.uk/wnsh.htm )

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