A MOONLIT NIGHT IN BUDAPEST

A live concert album truly shows how much a band is worth. In the studio, anything can be achieved, but the real measure is the stage performance. I was eagerly anticipating how Yesterdays' first album, 'Holdfénykert,' would sound on this CD, performed live. The studio album's intimate acoustic sound fortunately translates very excitingly in an electric version as well. Apart from the acoustic solo guitar piece, they do not use an acoustic guitar, but the Stratocaster and the 12-string guitar solve the sound with beautiful tones. I really like it!

The first song, 'Napfénykert,' (also the opening tune on the studio album) is a great little instrumental prog rock song with interesting rhythmic patterns, soaring flute, and a virtuoso guitar solo, during which the mellotron sounds wonderfully.

'Várj még' is a long-building lyrical composition with delicate female vocals, soft flute, and, at the end of the song, an energetic MiniMoog solo. In my opinion, this version sounds better than the studio original.

'So Divine' again surpasses the studio version, longer and more exciting, more dynamic. The Moog solo in the middle is crazy and fantastic at the same time!

'Végtelen' showcases Yesterdays' jazzier side, with a playful rhythm that turned out very well.

'Ne félj' is also much stronger here than the studio version was. The interesting thing about this song is that instead of a guitar solo, we hear singing through a microphone plugged into a guitar effect with a lot of distortion, resembling an analog synthesizer sound but even more interesting. I really like this solution, and I would love to see more of it live. Completely crazy!

The next two songs follow the tradition of progressive rock concerts: a guitar solo piece and a piano piece with genuine Yesterdays vibes.

'Hol vagy' is one of my favorites from the 'Holdfénykert' album; the flute sounds even more beautiful here than in the original, and the rhythm that closes the song also sounds more dynamic live.

'Valahol a térben' was the band's first success and hit in Romania and Hungary, occasionally appearing on the radio, and they even made a music video for it.

The concert album ends with 'Seven,' which is still a true Yesterdays classic. They reshaped the beginning, just like Yes did with the 'And You And I' in the 'Yessongs' version... it doesn't start acoustically but borrows chords from the song's chorus and features a lot of Moog. The effect is stunning. In the middle of the song, they brought in 'Yes's 'Time and a Word' (because Peter Banks was present...) which, of course, had to be cut from the official album release for copyright reasons, but the edit was done well, and you can hardly notice. In my opinion, this song is still one of the best Yesterdays creations to this day, a true symphonic prog gem. I always recommend this one to those who are not familiar with Yesterdays.

All in all, this is a very successful live concert album; it well documents the great musical potential that Yesterdays had from the beginning of their career. I enjoy listening to it very much, and I warmly recommend this concert album to everyone. I could also say that this is Yesterdays' 'Yesterdayssongs' album. I rate it a strong four stars.