1998 - Unplugged in Paris and in Philadelphia

In March 7, 1998, one day after playing at the Palais Des Congrès De Paris, Yes did a signing event in Fnac by the afternoon, including questions and answers, and also playing music, actually more than they expected to play.
A detailed description of this event can be seen here, on forgottenyesterdays, in the story told by Yann Clochec. The funniest moment was when someone told them to play Turn of the Century, then Jon said that it was "not a spinning wheel where you can quote any song and we'll play it, especially 'Turn of the century' which needs just a little bit of rehearsal, you know, it's a tricky cookie". Steve Howe ignored him and started playing the song, but Jon didn't remember more than two verses... So they asked for more suggestions. Awaken was their next try, but Igor Koroshev hadn't learnt the song properly...
Another curious moment is when Alain le Blanc (Alan White) tries to speak french but doesn't understand the most simple question (Comment allez-vous célébrer votre trentième anniversaire? - How will you celebrate your 30th anniversary?)

The second half of this bootleg is from a show in the Tower Theater, Pennsylvania. It's just the part of it that could be called acoustic or almost.
Sound quality is excellent.

Set list
01 Band Introduction
02 Yes Jam
03 Owner Of A Lonely Heart
04 Children Of Light
05 Turn Of The Century & Awaken
06 Alan White Discussing With The Fans
07 Open Your Eyes
08 Jon Anderson Discussing With The Fans
09 I've Seen All Good People
10 Corkscrew
11 Masquerade
12 Clap
13 Leaves Of Green
14 Children Of Light
15 Soon
16 Happy Birthday Jon Anderson

Thanks for the anonymous commentary who gave us the link, I'm glad to see more people contributing...

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REUPLOAD: 1976 - Vancouver

By 1976, Yes had Patrick Moraz, a keyboardist loved by many, and hated by perhaps even more. The band was at the peak of their success, making enormous shows, often on stadiums.
This one is from July 22, and features two epicss with astounding musicianship from the whole band: Ritual and The Gates of Delirium. Sound Chaser is another special moment. In spite of the song's complexity, it worked sso well live!
Very interesting as well are the solo sections, with a good mellotronesque solo by Moraz, Steve playing Clap and his arrangement of Vivaldi's Winter (which would be recorded much later on his solo album Natural Timbre) and Jon doing an harp solo, joined by Steve's steel guitar.
Audio quality is good (not excellent), but worse in some moments. Alas, the tape probably ran out before the end of the show, and Roundabout is cut.

Setlist:
Apocalypse
Siberian Khatru
Sound Chaser
I've Seen All Good People
The Gates Of Delirium
Long Distance Runaround
Moraz solo
Steve Howe solo
Jon solo
Heart Of The Sunrise
Ritual
Roundabout (end cut)

Recommended for:
Those who like Relayer and Patrick Moraz.

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REUPLOADED: 1977 - Best of Wembley

October (from 24 to 29), 1977
During their tour for Going for the One, Yes had a week-long stand in Wembley Arena, UK. Mick Dillingham and Steve Darton recorded all of the shows in their cassete tapes. Later, TheTooleMan (a great Yesfan who mastered countless bootlegs) had access to these tapes, made some noise reductions, and chose the best songs from each day, to give us the best. The result is an astonishing bootleg, with powerful performances of the band, in their homeland. Audio quality is good, and you can hear the crowd only between the songs.
Close to the Edge is slightly different: Steve Howe changed very much the introduction, giving us a rougher and rocking guitar playing. Rick also changed his awesome organ solo near the end, with results not so good. And the church organ's sound is not the best (neither it is in Parallels)
Turn of the Century is very beautiful here, the song's tender feel is recreated very well on stage.
Awaken features, again, astonishing work from Chris Squire. It looks like he gets better when playing this song in Wembley. I'll quote Simon Barrow's opinion in Forgottenyesterdays: "What really turned me inside out was ‘Awaken’. To some it’s an overblown cycle of fifths, I know. But to me, that evening, it was simply transcendent. The organ solo building to a tremendous delayed climax, then tapering off into the haunting vocal refrain and Howe’s brief, whimsical acoustic coda: it all left me drained and elated."
But the encore is the best. At this tour, the band started to play a very long version of Starship Trooper, which can be listened here at its best. The long jam of minimoog and guitar (changing frantically from one to the other) is so exciting, with Chris and Alan doing a steady accompaniment for Steve and Rick's long musical extravagance. Here, it is an extravagance of perfection.

CD1 Tracks:
Firebird Suite (10/29)
Parallels (10/29)
All Good People (10/26)
Close to the Edge (10/28)
Wonderous Stories (10/29)
Colours of the Rainbow (10/28)
Turn of the Century (10/27)
Tour Song (10/29)
And You And I (10/28)

CD2 Tracks:
Intro Comments (10/26)
Going for the One (10/26)
Flight Jam (10/27)
Awaken (10/27)
Starship Trooper (10/24)
Roundabout (10/24)

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Interviews - Delicious Agony

Delicious Agony is a very good online radio specialized on progressive rock. Since 2003 they have interviewed some of the best musicians from the genre, and Yes members were interviewed quite many times!
Today I give you a first lot of interviews, where you can hear (separatedly) Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe.

Chris talks about his excitement with the reformation of The Syn (band that he would leave some months after the interview), and also praises his recently dead friend Andrew Jackman, former keyboardist of Syn and responsible for the orchestral arrangements in Fish out of Water.


Rick Wakeman tells us that he's becoming such a famous comediant that there are kids that get surprised when they find out he plays piano. Rick also says there's a weird thelepathy between him and Steve Howe, because on every show they do any improvisation of one is perfectly followed by the other, in a way he never saw with another guitarist.
When the interviewer says "I've been talking to the legendary keyboardist Rick Wakeman..." Rick corrects him "You know, legendary means old"
He also talks about his (then) new album Out There how difficult are his one-man shows, when he has to entertain people, alone, for two hours.

Steve, on the other hand, is interviewed after a solo show in New York, and says there's something fascinating about doing a gig alone, being able to change everything as his mind pleases, and he feels much closer to the audience. He comments his album Spectrum and how nice it is to play with a new generation of Yes-related musicians (his son Dylan Howe and Rick's son Oliver Wakeman).

No downloads this time, only streaming audio. Any problems, contact me.

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In the studio - The Yes Album

The Yes Album was also featured on this radio show. This time, the interviews are with Jon Anderson, Chris Squire and Tony Kaye.

We can hear from Jon that Yours is no Discgrace was their first very extended piece, and once they had done that, each song they did, in that time, would be divided into parts. He admits having learned this kind of structure from classical music.

Chris praises Bill Bruford: "Initially, any band is only as active, criative and as good as its drummer. (...) He was a particularly good influence on me"

Jon's opinion on what made Yes different from other 70s bands is revealing:
The idea of strong melody came from Stravinsky. He made music very avant-garde, but he retained what the others didn't, and that was the melodies. (...) He holds it all together with melody. And I never wanted to lose that. (...) I realised that, if we didn't go that way, we'd have a Mahavishnu.

But the most amusing is when Jon admits they admired, with some jealousy, the early King Crimson:
In 68, (...) we heard this band was playing called King Crimson, and we said "Ok, let's check them out, see how good they are". And they were great! (...) For about a week, we tried to get over the fact that they were better than us. (...) Very similar attitude to music, but more... well organized. And that pushed the group on, it made us work harder.


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In the studio - Fragile

In this month of January, I'll dedicate the blog to interviews and radio programs about Yes.
The first one will be the "In the Studio" series, a radio show in the USA, presented by Redbeard, which focuses each time on a different classic album.
The Fragile program featured interviews with Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman. I cut the songs from the album.
Amongst the most interesting moments are Jon's unexpected explanations to Roundabout's lyrics: "Roundabout was actually formulated in Scotland, we were travelling from Aberdeen through Glasgow, and we started the song by the time we were in Aberdeen, me and Steve were singing in the back of the van (...) and the mountains are sheer from both sides of the road, they just climb up to the sky, and because it was a cloudy day we couldn't see the top of the muntains, we could only see the clouds, 'cause it went straight up (...) and I remember me saying "Look, they're coming out of the sky!" (...) Just before you get to Glasgow there's a lake, a very famous one, Loch Ness, so we were driving "in and around the lake, mountains come out of the sky and they stand there"
Jon also states that one melody in the wordless sung part in the end of the song is actually "Three Bilnd Mice"
Jon talks about Long Distance Runaround: "It was how religion have seemed to confuse me totally. It was such a game that had to be played, and I was going round in circles, looking for the sound of reality, the sound of God.

Rick gives a great inside view of his musician life, in statements such as "We were convinced that music and musicians of the so-called rock age, or some of them, at least, should be taken seriously" and "What we would like to happen is in twenty years time, that a joker on the radio somewhere could pull a track off and play it, and it would not sound out of place"

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