SOMETHING'S COMING - THE BBC RECORDINGS 1969-1970

This review refers to "The Millenium Collection" packaging.

...my ears twinged as tin foil music with treble turned up to high pitch and cardboard guitars blinged out of the speakers.

Let me tell you a story. OK, so I was wandering around aimlessly in the second hand market and nothing remotely prog could be found anywhere. The vinyl albums were both types of music, country AND western, the CDs were your basic top 40 radio rubbish, so I was about to walk out disappointed when I walked past a stall with one CD on it. The words Yes gleamed out and hit my eyeballs. My hand reached out like an instinctive reaction and greedily grabbed the gold cover. The gold leaf cover was one I had never seen and I had everything that was Yes, but I didn't have this. On the back cover I noted that these were very old live performances; 2 CDs worth of them! "How much" I managed to stammer, the disinterested vendor mumbles, "Ah.. a dollar will do for t hat". I was more than stunned. You could have peeled me off the ceiling. "OK I will take it". I mean, who wouldn't?

So I raced home and eagerly put the first CD on. 'Something's Coming' began to play. It sounded as if it had been recorded inside a shoe box. It was yes but it sounded mono and no bass and horrible production like a flipping bootleg. I skipped to the next track ,and it was the same, awful mono quality, a tiny sound like AM radio at its worst. Perhaps there is something wrong with the speakers. I checked them by putting on "Fragile"; 'Roundabout' boomed out of the speakers. No, nothing wrong with the CD player.

I put the "Millenium Collection" CD on again and my ears twinged as tin foil music with treble turned up to high pitch and cardboard guitars blinged out of the speakers. What is this? I read the liner notes; "This album features both studio recordings produced by Peter Banks and examples of radio and TV performances from the early days of the band." Ok. Enough said. That is what it is. These early performances are actually taken directly from the BBC radio or videos so as a record of early live Yes, it is... interesting is the operative word. It is not entertaining. The versions here are a pale comparison to the original studio version. The quality is so naff it is cringe worthy. The tracks are the worst the band has to offer apart from 'Astral Traveller', 'Sweet Dreams' and 'Something's Coming'. It cost me a dollar, 50 cents per CD so that's not to be complained about, because that is precisely what it is worth! This is definitely only for collectors so 2 cringeworthy stars. Everyone else steer well clear of this nasty little curio.