Categories
Episodes YMP Classic Feed

Episode 118 – Yes concert intro music

Photo by Bob Mantin
How to hype up the crowd…

The one hundred and eighteenth episode of the Yes Music Podcast, featuring an exploration of the music the band have used over the years to introduce their concerts.

  • How many different pieces have been used?
  • Are they all classical?
  • Which is the most effective?

Listen and see if you agree, then let me know by contacting me via any of the methods below.

Please get involved with the YMP e-book – for a copy of the guidelines, please see the full blog post on the front page of the website.

Please subscribe!

If you are still listening to the podcast on the website, please consider subscribing so you don’t risk missing anything. You can subscribe with an RSS reader, with iTunes, with the iOS Podcasts app, on your Blackberry, via email updates, via www.stitcher.com on Spreaker.com or via Tunein.com.

Show links

Amazing studio photos on Facebook

Forgotten Yesterdays pages:

Rome 1971 concert

Queen’s Hall Devon 1971 concert

ABWH Evening of Yes Music Plus

Theme music

The music I use is the last movement of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. This has been used as introduction music at many Yes concerts. My theme music is not take from a live concert – I put it together from the following two creative commons sources: thanvannispen and archive.org

8 replies on “Episode 118 – Yes concert intro music”

Kevin–great idea for a show, and I enjoyed it! You mention that on the Evening of Yes Music Plus video Jon’s “somewhat bizarre” appearance in the audience after the Britten piece was largely due to the fact that the show was a live broadcast and had to start at 730 before it was dark. As someone who saw two other shows that week (I spent my vacation following the band up the California coastline), the lights would go out, bathing the arena and darkness, and Jon would suddenly appear near the soundboard, as if he had been beamed in from space! It was an astonishing effect–especially since you could hear him, but you couldn’t figure out where his voice was coming from! It was one of my favorite openings to a Yes show ever–it was unfortunate no one was able to get it on video as it was intended. Not the same effect when Jon strolls out in broad daylight!

Kevin, Great subject yet again. Just one little extra reference, you could have included in you discussion of Le Sacre du Printemps, that Jon sings the opening bars of that piece on Yessongs, just before he introduces ‘Mr Rick Wakeman on keyboards’

What about the music that was used for the Tormato tour (widely bootlegged from one of the Wembley shows on BBC Radio)? It is assumedly a Wakeman recording, possibly with Alan White, and sounds to me strongly influenced by Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I think was in the cinema at that time.

A bit late with a comment but I remember that Lance Burton used the same piece from Firebird during his Las Vegas magic show – I got very excited and wondered when the band were coming on! Cheers

Leave a Reply to Kevin Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 300 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.