Collecting Live Yes

Terrific post. Thank you and agree with pretty much everything you said. Will add that any of the Lampinski audience pulls were quality and worth hearing. Also, the Drama FM broadcast was plagued with issues...there was a terrible thunderstorm that night that interfered with the broadcast causing static and dropouts. Re: the 90125 tour, IIRC another soundboard came into circulation over the last couple of years (Tempe, AZ perhaps?) that’s pretty good as well and has “Our Song” which was at some point dropped so if you dig that track you’ll want that show.

 

They did use tapes on some pieces, like the intro middle and ending sound effects pipe organ in Close to the Edge.

 

The ‘In the Round’ vinyl boot that was among the most widely available Yes vinyl bootlegs was mislabeled as being from LA on 10/16 (there was no such show on that date). They played Oakland on 10/4-10/6 but there was no broadcast. Those shows were recorded but only fragments remain (some appeared on ‘The Word is Live’). Sadly many of the source recordings that Chris Squire was working through to compile Yesshows went MIA and have yet to be re-discovered (or that was certainly the case when ‘The Word is Live’ was compiled...things may have changed since).

 

Very eloquently stated. I feel the same way, excepting the great Close to the Edge album... I love White, but Bruford is the definitive drummer for these pieces. ABWH's synth-drumified versions don't count.

 

I mis-typed in my last post .. the show I was at was at LA Forum on Oct. 5th, there was also one on the 6th.
I think the reason for the mislabeling could have been that King Biscuit said it was from LA when they broadcast (at least when I taped it)
To add to the confusion I definitely remember before the show a british voice announced over the PA, "You might be interested that tonights show is being recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour!" which was met with great cheering, to which the announcer replied, "I thought you might be interested!" (Might have been a tape though..)

 

Jon Anderson has said their music was composed to be played on stage.

 

According to a tape I have, they played Release at Boston Garden on 8-30-78, then dropped it and added "Arriving UFO" when they returned on 6-19-79. On the former tape, Jon says something about the "different kinds of songs" that will be on their new album.

 

Great list and I think you hit some of the best.

For the Tales show I also highly recommend the Boston 2/26/74, show as like the MSG, show they played the complete Tales album and it is excellent quality for the time. They dropped the "Remebering" later in the tour so there are few decent recordings of the complete Tales album.



Yes – Alternate View (Virtuoso 034/035)

For the GFTO tour also agree with the Mike Millard shows being excellent audience recordings. He also recorded the famous Led Zep "Listen to this Eddie" 1977 LA Forum concert. I have boots 2 of the Cali shows he recorded and I think this is the best sound quality

Yes – Wonderous Master (Siréne-197)

Here is a short summary about Mike the Mike.

Mike Millard - Wikipedia

Yes also toured Japan in 1973 and there is an excellent audience recording of their December 21st show. I have this boot and it is excellent as well and I agree with the reviewer here that this is one of the better early Yes audience tapes.

Yes – Heart Of The Sunrise (Siréne-044)

 

Interesting. I still have my tape. It's sitting somewhere among hundreds of other cassettes I gathered over the years.

 

Well, this is how the actual bands see it - for just about any band that performs. The whole thing about the version of a song recorded for an album being "the" version the primary version is just an invention made by people who didn't/don't have any practical means of hearing it any other way, and who probably aren't in a band themselves. The band itself and all people associated with the live shows surely don't see it that way. For most bands, a song is something that gets developed/refined over days/weeks/months in group sessions and then gets rehearsed for live shows and then lives on onstage, for however long it lasts in the repertoire. The studio recording is a brief moment that happened in between all that.

That said, there are artists who really use the unique facilities of the studio when making albums and for them perhaps the studio version of a song resonates more deeply. But for most songs, I'm sure it's not that way. And certainly not for jazz or jazz-influenced music. I wonder if most of the jazz guys towards the end of their careers can even remember when they recorded a particular track for the studio.

 

Bingo. Yeah, that's it. There may only be two or three recordings of Release Release, and Boston is the best one.

 

Yes never lip-synched. They didn't have to. Nice try though.

So dumb. Instant ignore.

 

Songs from Tsongas and Keys to Ascension may not be the best live Yes, but I recommended as I were at both of these shows so....
Seriously, I’d recommend picking one from each decade or so, that way you don’t get too bogged down and can spread it out

1973 Yesongs
1989ABWH
1996 Keys
2004 Tsongas
2014 Bristol Hippodrome
2018 ARW

 

Like, the Beatles, for one (definitely after about 1966)

 

I didn't say they lipsynched. I said they were playing (and singing) along to a tape.

 

You said that, since you heard a tape, that that was why they so rarely changed much up in the arrangements, as if they were playing to a tape the whole concert. They used a tape for the intro and outro sound effects for Close to the Edge, and I think another tape during its free tempo middle section, for the atmospheric sounds. So you may not have said they were lip-synching, but you are incorrect to suggest that they were playing along to a tape for any significant amount of time, or that they were following along musically with a tape. Any such tape would have been impossible for anyone in the band to hear to follow on stage except for that one section; it was just sound effects and atmosphere otherwise.

 

Hey, that's what I heard. When the amps went out, I heard the original record at the same point in the song. Whether they had it in their headphones during the entire song, I don't know. It was at Stegeman Coliseum, University of Georgia, Athens, November 14, 1972. Believe otherwise if it suits you.

 

yea dog- thats must why the wembley 78 2lp bootleg set is listed Live at the Forum

 

Really?

 

What headphones? And how did all the amps "go out" all at once?

Since that complete show is available in the Progeny box set, I'll have to give a better listen to it later this week.

 

Sounds good. Let me know what you hear.

Friend, I'm just telling you what I heard. I'm only a mid-level Yes fan, so I don't know if any of them wore headphones or "how" the amps "went out" all at once. It seemed like someone pulled the plug. The lights were still on and the PA was working.

 

They used a tape for the pipe organ part of Close to the Edge in the early days. The band played along to it.

 

Probably a good idea to find live discs representing all the different line ups of the band. The 1971 lineup will always be classic but I like the 90125 era lineup's live sound with Trevor Rabin's contributions.

 

They also used tapes for the "Cha Cha Cha" part of Sound chaser on the Relayer tour (on the Boston bootleg, the tape accidentally plays at the very beginning of the song as if someone forgot to stop the tape after Firebird?).

 

This is a fantastic list. Thanks! I have all of these shows as downloads, but I'd never taken the time to properly tag them and add them to my library. Your post motivated me to do so, and sampling shows from every era of the band has reminded me how much I love live Yes.

Edit: @whiskeyvengeance, are you aware of the presence of a complete SBD from 7/31/71 in London? Various tracks appear on The Word is Live and the bonus discs of the Yes Album Blu-ray release, but I'd hope there's a full SBD out there somewhere.