9012LIVE: THE SOLOS

This album (or mini-L.P.?) was released to promote the then forthcoming VHS video called "9012LIVE". This album could have been better if it was released with more songs played by the entire band and not with the solo performances by each member of the band which were omitted in the video. "Hold on" is a good live version, but Tony Kaye`s keyboards are more in the background.The other song performed by the whole band is "Changes", with very good keyboards by Tony Kaye (with brief additional keyboards by Jon Anderson, as seen in the video) and better mix. The other tracks are performed as solos by each member. Tony Kaye`s solo is brief and it seems that he doesn`t like very much to do this kind of performances on stage.He plays with Trevor Rabin in Rabin`s acoustic guitar solo called "Solly`s Beard", the best of the solos. Jon Anderson`s solo is the "Soon" part of "The Gates of Delirium", played differently with Tony Kaye on keyboards. Chris Squire`s solo is a brief and distorted bass guitar and bass pedals version of "Amazing Grace", followed by "White Fish", which has Chris Squire and Alan White playing their "solos" in a medley of fragments of songs like "The Fish", "Tempus Fugit", "Sound Chaser" and others. I bought this album in L.P. in 1986, but I only have seen it available on C.D. in a very expensive imported version from Japan (which I`m not going to buy, of course).