1987 - Philadelphia (DVD)

From T.U.B.E

-Source VHS > DVD

-Menu: No, chapters every 5 minutes

-Audio: AC3

-Video Format: MPEG 2

-Resolution: 704 x 480 / NTSC

-Frames Per Second : 29.970

-Aspect Ratio: 4:3

-Approx Running Time: 1 Hour 53 Minutes

-Total Size: 4.03GB

01 - Almost Like Love

02 - Hold On

03 - Heart Of The Sunrise

04 - Changes

05 - Shoot High Aim Low

06 - Holy Lamb

07 - Tony Kaye Solo

08 - Solly's Beard

09 - Make It Easy

10 - Owner Of A Lonely Heart

11 - Yours Is No Disgrace

12 - And You And I

13 - Würm

14 - Love Will Find A Way

15 - I've Seen All Good People

16 - Roundabout

Links on comments (yes, it's split in 42 parts! Only for patient fans...)

Jon Anderson - 1980

Jon Anderson

Royal Albert Hall

London

December 1, 1980

Source: Radio Broadcast

In late 1979 Jon Anderson left Yes for a solo career. He recorded the album Song of Seven and subsequently embarked on an extensive tour in support of the album with a large band that went under the name The New Life Band. The Sheffield Concert was a gig from The Song of Seven Tour in the UK 1980. The nine piece line-up provides a generous set list including a number of key Yes songs, a medley with his work in collaboration with Vangelis, as well as most songs from Jon's solo album Song of Seven.

Very different from his music with Yes, most songs from Song of Seven are short and simple. The exception is the long progressive piece homonimous to the album, which is its pièce-de-resistance, especially for Yes fans.

1) Intro (1:46)

2) Yes Medley (25:03)

To Be Over 

Perpetual Change 

The Prophet 

Long Distance Runaround 

Wonderous Stories 

Rejoice

I've Seen All Good People (Pt 1)

Revealing Science Of God 

I've Seen All Good People (Pt 2) 

The Remembering (High The Memory) 

Ritual (Nous Sommes du Soleil)

3) Some Are Born (4:06)

4) Don't Forget (Nostalgia) (3:17) 

5) Petrushka (8:57)   (composed by Stravinsky)

6) Far Away In Baagad / Bird Song / One More Time (13:41)  (originally appeared on the album Short Stories, by Jon and Vangelis)

7) Hear It (2:43) 

8) Take Your Time (3:36) 

9) Song Of Seven (10:50)

On the official release "Live in Sheffield" recorded 2 days later, the following are credited as musicians:

- Barry DeSouza / drums

- Jo Partridge / guitars

- Ronnie Leahy / keyboards

- John Giblin / bass

- Morris Pert / drums, percussion

- Christopher Rainbow / vocals 

- Dick Morrisay / saxophone

Links on comments!

Steve Howe - Sharp on Attack (1988)

In 1988, the IRS No Speak label began releasing albums in the "Guitar Speak" trilogy. In this project, various guitarists were called upon to provide new material for compilation releases.

The excellence of Steve Howe's piece wasn't surprising to me. "Sharp On Attack" (which has since resurfaced in an alternate form on Homebrew) is an excellent display of Howe's talents. Steve uses more guitars on his piece than anyone else on this album (five, to be precise), and the internal diversity which results makes it well worth it. The acoustic opening provides excellent flavouring, and the middle section of the piece ranks among Howe's better melodies of recent years. This piece must be considered as the second official installment in Howe's redemption for the early 1980s (with "Sketches In The Sun" being the first), and it does its job well.

(quoted from the excellent blog jazz-rock-fusion-guitar - find the link to it on your right)

In this video, Steve plays his song, now with just one guitar, and, as my friend says, he shows us he was alive and well in the 80s!

1984 - I'm Down (featuring Jimmy Page)

June 24, 1984
Dortmund, Germany

This show from 90125 tour had Si, Solly's Beard and Soon recorded for 9012Live: the solos.
But what I bring you today is the unexpected encore: I'm Down (that Beatles' song they played in 1976 as well) with Jimmy Page (from Led Zeppelin) joining them to play guitar.
Jon is slightly out of tune in the beginning, but later, when the guitars of Trevor Rabin and Jimmy Page start duelling, we have one of the band's best moments from the 80s.

Link on comments!

1984 - Milano

This show was uploaded by the friend Tadreamer62.
It's an audience recording with very good sound. See the original notes:
It was strange to see one of the dinosaurs of the 70's to play and acting like a typical
80's band, in the vain of Spandau Ballet or Tears for Fears! But the music was sooo good and the audience was looking
forward to see them after a 10 years absence from italian territory.

I remember hearing people describing the time they had
seen the band more than 10 years before in Milano, with PFM opening. The sound of the hall was quite good, despite the fact
this sports hall was not really designed for music events. Eventually, it was shut down and then destroyed one year later,
when a big snow in winter resulted in collapsing the venue's roof. This version comes from a direct copy from the master
I had in the early 90's from the taper himself, I big german guy who used to go around Europe and tape many shows with his
Sony Pro (thanks Robert L.!). It sounds amazing if you consider it's almost 23 years ago. I reduced a little bit basses
and enhanced trebles to sound it more clear, balanced the volume of the two channels and eliminated tape flips.
It's a very good sounding show, a real improvement from the master.
ldb


01 Intro / Cinema
02 Leave It
03 Yours Is No Disgrace
04 Alan White drums solo /
05 Hold On
06 Hearts
07 I've Seen All Good People
08 Si (Tony Kaye solo)
09 Solley's Beard
10 Changes
11 And You And I
12 Soon
13 Make It Easy/Owner Of A Lonely Heart
14 It Can Happen
15 Long Distance Runaround/
16 Whitefish/Amazing Grace
17 City Of Love
18 Starship Trooper
19 Roundabout
20 Applause / Outro music

Links on comments!

1980 - Los Angeles

Another boot from Drama tour, showing the encarnation of Yes that showed a new sound, belonging in the 80's but still undoubtedly with the Yes signature.
This one is from the very nice blog All the World's a Bootleg


Setlist:
CD 1
1.Young Persons Guide To The Orchestra/Apocalypse
2.Does It Really Happen?
3.Yours Is No Disgrace
4.Into The Lens
5.Clap
6.And You And I
7.Go Through This
8.Man In The White Car Suite
9.We Can Fly From Here

CD 2
1.Tempus Fugit
2.Amazing Grace/The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)
3.Machine Messiah
4.Starship Trooper
5.Roundabout

Links in comments!

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)
Links on comments!

1988 - Live in Houston

Houston, Texas, USA
February 19, 1988

This is one of the best bootlegs from Rabin era. The show must have been great, and the acoustics of the place too, because some songs were used in the box The Word is Love and the bootleg was pressed many times, under different names (Live USA, Yesshows'88, etc). The one here is called Big Generator Show & Rare Tracks and has a cover I'm not putting here as it's horribly ugly.
The show was good, with good renditions of songs from 90125 and Big Generator, but also good playing on old songs, such as And You And I and Heart of the Sunrise. I think Rabin was much
better playing Howe songs here than in 90125 tour.
My personal favourites are Rabin solo, Solly's Beard, here simply called "Instrumental" and Yours is no Disgrace, with a good rock'n'roll energy from the whole band.

Links on comments!

1980 – Live in Boston

09/09/1980 – Boston Garden, MA, USA

In 1980 Yes did their only album without Jon Anderson. Many people hate this album and many people love it. Both with good reasons.
After Drama, Yes went to tour with this line-up. First, in North America, they found an enthusiastic and receptitive audience. Later, in Europe, they would often find audiences that hated the concerts and screamed they wanted to see the real Yes, with Jon and Rick. Incidentally, Yes would even meet a provisory end due to this.
But this show is from the beginning of North-American tour. The band was playing for just two weeks, and eager to show their new music to the audience. Boston is particularly known for its loud audience, and surely it encouraged the band to put up a better show.
About the show. Trevor Horn did a great job on Drama, in my opinion, singing well and doing things Jon wouldn't do. But he definitely wasn't the right person to sing Jon's songs live. It's so clear here. Yours is no disgrace, the first old song they perform, is rather pathetic. Some other songs, like Parallels and Roundabout, are ok with his vocals, but nothing fantastic.
Highlights are the Drama songs, particularly Machine Messiah and Tempus Fugit, with powerful and tight renditions, close to the studio ones. Another great moment is Chris's solo, featuring the religious song Amazing Grace. He takes all the feeling he can from his Rickenbacker.
Take a look also on the new songs, We Can Fly From Here and Go Through This.

Setlist:
Young Persons Guide To The Orchestra
Apocalypse
Does It Really Happen?
Yours Is No Disgrace
Into The Lens
Clap
And You And I
Go Through This
Man In The White Car Suite
Parallels
We Can Fly From Here
Tempus Fugit
Amazing Grace/The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)
Machine Messiah
Starship Trooper
Roundabout

Links on comments!