9012LIVE: THE SOLOS

This short live album (or live EP?) contains live material recorded on the 90125 Tour and as such it features Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Trevor Rabin, Alan White and Tony Kaye. The idea behind this EP is to gather together the members' respective solo spots from the tour. Si is Tony's keyboard solo spot which is short but nice. The strangely titled Solly's Beard is Rabin's acoustic solo spot and is something of an exercise in speed-guitar playing not unlike that of Yngwie J. Malmsteen. Rabin throws in a bit of Flamenco flair as well. Both Kaye's and Rabin's solo spots are very good, but not very memorable in the end. Jon gives us Soon (the final part of Gates Of Delirium from Relayer) as his solo spot. It is a lovely song, but here it sounds a little bit out of place and it is also truncated as it fades in! Chris' solo spot is a bass interpretation of the Psalm Amazing Grace. Now it is only Alan left and though it would be reasonable to expect a proper drum solo what we actually get is rather an instrumental workout featuring not just Alan by himself on the drums but Chris as well on the bass. What they give us is, of course, the famous Whitefish medley containing The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus), Tempus Fugit and Sound Chaser (the rest of the band joins in later and Jon sings 'Yes, Yes - Yes, Yes' is Tempus Fugit!). Apart from these solo performances we also get two "proper" songs, both taken from the 90125 album; Hold On and Changes. Oddly, these two were recorded in Edmonton, Canada while the sols spots were recorded Dortmund, Germany. There is also a live video (re- released on DVD in 2006) which features nine songs in total from the Edmonton show including the two ones also featured here. The solo spots and several other songs were edited out, however. This means that the present album still is the only place where you can hear these solo performances. Needless to say, a complete concert would have been strongly preferable and the solo spots would have been better presented in a running order mirroring the original set list.

As it stands, this short live album is recommended for fans and collectors only

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