YESSHOWS

Yesshows is a victim of Yessongs' success. The preceding live album had been so incredibly lavish, and presented so many songs, that the pre-Tales from Topographic Ocean material was more or less exhausted. (Chris Squire, who compiled this set, even stoops to including a performance of Time and a Word - a rendition which only proves how much of a step down that song is compared to the subsequent Yes repertoire).

The album also seems to have been compiled with an agenda - despite coming out after Drama, not a single song from the accompanying tour is included. And yet a tepid rendition of Don't Kill the Whale makes the grade? Oh, spare me; the material on Drama was too good to be excised from Yes history in this way. The album is further marred by the sound quality being - to my ears at least - a step below Yessongs, when considering the advancements in live recording technology over the subsequent years really shouldn't be the case.

It's not a disaster, mind. The band do the good job they usually do, and some will find the performance of Ritual featuring Patrick Moraz to be intriguing. Nonetheless, unlike Yessongs the performances here do not approach the standard of the studio renditions. One to skip unless you're addicted to live Yes, I'd say.