YESSONGS

This live album represented my second journey to the music of Yes after I first listened to the ground breaking "Fragile" album in mid seventies. What truly amazed me at first listen through a cassette lent from my big bro Henky was the live performance of "Perpetual Change" whereby by that time I had never heard of the studio album and I did not know this was taken from what album. But man . it BLEW me away especially when I sensed the high energy of Steve Howe's guitar style combined with chock-full of bass lines by the energetic guy Chris Squire and fantastic drumming by Alan White. This track is really fabulous and for me it's the album's mascot. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say the other tracks are not good as they are all in fact are excellent. The other thing that hooked me to the album was the beautiful "Opening (Excerpt from "Firebird Suite") " that set the overall live vibe of the show continued dynamically, lively with the track from Close to The Edge album "Siberian Khatru". I think the combination of these two tracks have characterized many live acts of the band in their early history. It was changed with "Parallels" in the "Yesshows" album which featured Patrick Moraz.

Well, it's gonna be boring if I review on track by track basis as by now I assume that you have been familiar with all individual track of this live set. I do like the live atmosphere and the high energy by all members of Yes in this show. If you don't have this album, I recommend you should get one. I also have the laser disc version (with selected tracks only from the CD version) of the show which represents an excellent documentary of the band's live show history, even though the sound quality is really poor. Keep on proggin' .!

Progressively yours,

GW