9012LIVE: THE SOLOS

This was a small live promo album that was released a couple years after 90125 to promote the 9012Live video that was released at the conclusion of the 1984 tour. Originally the video was only available in VHS or Betmax, but has since been released on DVD.

This is an okay album, but it is clearly only a promotional piece and I doubt the band had much input. This is very short (only about 33 minutes long), with two full songs, four solos, and one Chris Squire/Alan White bit at the end that's kind of a collage loosely based on "The Fish". All of the pieces are pretty good, but they fail to capture the power of the live performances from this tour. I saw the band in Oklahoma on this tour, and can confirm that each of them were definitely at the top of their game. Sure, the band was riding a popularity wave based on the "Owner of a Lonely Heart" pop hit at the time, but this represented only a small part of the concert, and isn't included on this album at all.

The two sides of the album kick off with numbers with the whole band, "Hold On" on side A and "Changes" on side B. The recording quality is pretty good, the post-production excellent, and all the band members give polished performances. These two songs were recorded in Dortmund Germany in 1984, and both are on the DVD as well.

The solo performances are pretty good too, but again I have to say that they don't capture the aura of the performances that I remember seeing live. This is particularly true of Trvor Rabin's "Solly's Beard" guitar solo. In concert he did this one about halfway through the concert while the rest of the band were taking a quick break. He was wearing an all red suit, with the stage largely darkened and a yellowish spotlight forcused on him. The crowd went nuts, as can also be heard in the background on this recording, but on vinyl the performance looses a bit of its luster. Same goes for Tony kaye's solo "Si". Kaye wasn't all that animated during his solo in concert though, and it was sandwiched in between two other songs at the time, so it wasn't really a highlight of the concert even back when it was being performed.

Jon Anderson shows why he was/is the master of progressive falsetto vocals on "Soon". His voice is all over the human hearing-range register, and does not waver or falter even for one note. Crystal clear and strong. Brilliant!

I don't remember Chris Squire doing "Amazing Grace" as a bass solo in the 1984 tour. I do remember him doing a solo, all dressed in white and dancing around like a whirling dervish though. Anyway, my clearest recollection of his solo from 1984 was that a bass player isn't supposed to play his instrument like a lead guitar, but he did then, and he does here. This is really short (only two minutes), but ranks among the best renditions of this gospel classic I have ever heard.

The mini-album closes with something called "Whitefish", an extended rhythm play with Squire and White. Here again I don't remember this solo from the concert I attended, and all the solos here were actually recorded in Edmonton Canada, so perhaps the track bill had changed by the time I saw them. Anyway, it's a nice piece with snippets of a number of Yes classics intertwined in a loose framework of "The Fish", running about nine minutes and bringing the house down with applause at the end.

This is a decent collector's item of the band, if nothing else. The two full live pieces are excellent, and "Whitefish" isn't available anywhere else as far as I know. Overall this is a good piece of music, but certainly not essential. I believe it is available on CD, but which is good because I doubt if you'll find the vinyl version anywhere anymore (and I ain't selling mine). Thee stars.

peace