YESSHOWS

Many rock bands through the seventies released classic and ultimate live albums but then when it came to a later live release the same bands fell flat on their faces as the energy subsided and other negative forces took hold. While Yes had musically peaked and carried the massive momentum on the triple Yessongs set, the contractual obligated Yesshows album is a very dull affair. After keyboard player Rick Wakeman and vocalist Jon Anderson exited the band and the release of Drama which featured a couple of Buggles, this album was culled from gigs on the Going For The One tour in 1977 but the album sounds uninspired, tepid and lethargic. A good live album should give the listener the impression and excitement of a show which explodes, builds momentum and finishes with a fitting crescendo as if you were there in the audience soaking up the atmosphere. Yesshows sounds very patched together and inconsistent and fails to to grab the attention of the listener. The songs sound overlong and tired and the production is rather unforgiving and for the Yes completist it may be an essential album but for the passive fan Yesshows is an unnecessary and overindulgent collection of live songs from an era of discontent in the Yes ranks. The eighties had arrived and this was the decade that spelled the death knell for many of the rock bands that dominated the seventies but Yes would recover and reinvent themselves and adapt to the new ways and waves with the very successful 90125 album in 1983.