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Produced by Wayne Hall, Joseph Cottrell, Jeffrey Crecelius and Ken Fuller
This week, Mark and I were joined by Jon Pickles to talk about the latest (greatest?) Yes Record Store Day offering – Live at the Rainbow London, England 12/16/1972 – a catchy title if there ever was one. I haven’t forked out the considerable amount of money for a copy – yet – but both Jon and Mark have, so at least they are speaking from a position of knowledge. No change there then.
Have you managed to get a copy of this new release?
- What does the music sound like?
- Is it a good performance?
- Is the high cost justified?
Let us know if you agree with us!
Yes – The Tormato Story
Available now!
YMP Patrons:
Producers:
- Joseph Cottrell
- Wayne Hall
- Ken Fuller
- Jeffrey Crecelius
Patrons:
| Aaron Steelman | Lind |
| Al Dell’Angelo | Lobate Scarp |
| Barry Gorsky | Mark Baggs |
| Bill Whittaker | Mark James Lang |
| Bob Martilotta | Mark Slater |
| Brian Harris | Martin Kjellberg |
| Brian Sullivan | Michael Handerhan |
| Chris Bandini | Michael O’Connor |
| Craig Estenes | Miguel Falcão |
| Dave Owen | Paul Hailes |
| David | Paul Tomei |
| David Heyden | Rachel Hadaway |
| David Pannell | Robert Nasir |
| David Watkinson | Robert Vandiver |
| Declan Logue | Ronnie Neeley |
| Dem | Scott Colombo |
| Doug Curran | Simon Barrow |
| Fergus Cubbage | Stephen Lambe |
| Fred Barringer | Steve Dill |
| Gary Betts | Steve Luzietti |
| Geoff Bailie | Steve Perry |
| Geoffrey Mason | Steve Rode |
| Guy DeRome | Steve Scott |
| Henrik Antonsson | Steven Roehr |
| Hogne Bø Pettersen | Terence Sadler |
| Todd Dudley | |
| John Cowan | John Thomson |
| John Holden | John Viola |
| Jamie McQuinn | Tim Stannard |
16 replies on “Reactions to Record Store Day 2025 – 670”
This is the 1st ever Yes release that I have not bought, due to the issues mentioned, so Kevin you’re not alone! I have the CTTE deluxe edition with the Rainbow concert on cds, plus the blu-ray & vinyl, so that will suffice for me. Thanks, Mark & Jon for your detailed info. FYI, I was told last month that the source of this Rainbow show was a tape in Steve Howe’s archive. There’s no doubt that Rhino needs one or more of us to assist with their re-releases, special editions and RSD vinyls, to make sure they are accurate regarding info, photos and to add the expected missing liner notes! As for the future, I’ve been told that they will release the Tales deluxe edition either for this Christmas or sometime next year. Steve Howe has provided at least 1 Tales concert recording.
It was a pleasure join in bg Mark and Kevin to discuss Yes Live at the Rainbow 12/16/1972 the RSD release from Rhino. Thanks for your comment Doug Curran. It’s a real shame as I am sure there would be a better source from Ken if the shows. I do hope the Tales release is a lot better. I’d certainly be willing to assist with the release if asked. Anyway, glad to have had an opportunity to discuss this in this fabulous Podcast.
Great show as always lads – although I did want to offer a couple of different views. For Jon to say RSD is manly a money grab I feel is a bit sour to the feeling here in Australia to me. There are not a lot of independent stores, and I feel it does put these stores only for 1 day of the year in focus. The guy who runs one near me (20 min drive away) put on free coffee/tea for those waiting the queue for almost 1.5 hours and there was a nice vibe of people waiting (it was a nice warm morning).
I am grateful for your episode today as I missed out on the Yes release, and I am glad I did – I know you are aware it is on the CTTE box but surly you also knew it was on Apple Music/Spotify – ie you could hear it there first before purchasing to see if you wanted it.
Lastly was the slight dig at Rhino for their lack of quality. OK, this RSD was not a good release and yes there was the wrong song on Fragile box BUT there are many good things you don’t seem to mention. Last year RSD also had a full Fragile alternative Vinyl release. None of these songs had been released before the Fragile box set came out – inside in that box (and on the RSD vinyl) was the fascinating “All fighters Past” which I hope makes your TFTO book Kevin as it is an interesting fast snippet of TheRSOG. What fan doesn’t want more unknown Yes officially? And then released on Vinyl – the version of ‘Southside’ is very different and fun to hear.
OK so this CTTE box set didn’t have a lot of unknown stuff but at least it was a live show we hadn’t heard before and some of us scored the signed Roger Dean lithograph which is very nice.
Keep the good work.
Yes , all good and fair points. Thank you. Yes, I asked Steve Howe about All Fighters Past and his response will be in the book. I like that version very much.
Excellent episode not least because I was able to cancel my order before it shipped. Especially as I have already shelled out for the CTTE super deluxe and was unaware of the duplication in repertoire. I thank you!
One small note of mitigation when it comes to the artwork – back in the early and mid 70s bootlegs you could find sold on market stalls and
out of discount jean shops were often sold in thick plain white cardboard sleeves with no writing on them. The information on the labels on the vinyl rarely coincided with the music within. What you did get was a sheet of cheap-looking coloured paper slid between the white cover and shrink wrap with a basic design, limited information re the source of the recording and a track listing. Usually a one colour print job featuring a badly rendered photo. I still have a few of these in my collection. Cheap byt not especially aesthetically pleasing. I have a feeling that this old school “grey market” look is what Rhino are aiming for rather than it being lack of competence or a money saving exercise.
As an example here’s the same show (or bits from a pair of shows) in its original bootleg form …
Thanks Ian.
Yes I’m sure you are right about the packaging. Personally I don’t mind it.
Great episode and it certainly reflects my thoughts and reasons as to why I didn’t buy this (or indeed any of the last few) RSD releases.
I’ve sent Kevin a more detailed voice memo with some extra thoughts.
Could Rhino do better? Yes – and they’ve made massive errors (Side bar – this is a business … do those errors affect sales? Probably not).
Do Rhino have a complete and curated Yes Archive? Almost certainly not.
Are they doing the best they can, within commercially sensible reason, with what they’ve got? Probably.
Yes, fair enough. I don’t think a quick email to a Yes expert somewhere early in the Rhino process would be too much to ask though. There are many of us who would be only too happy to be involved and help avert the mistakes. I don’t think that would compromise their business process. If they want to involve me, I promise to respond immediately. 😉
Absolutely… but equally… I am not sure Rhino really care that much.
My take on this stuff is that it is a niche within a niche within a niche and unfortunately that’s really not that important to “the business” in the grand scheme. I’m not saying that’s right, and I absolutely hope it would be better.
And to an extent, Yes is to blame here because they don’t seem to be interested enough to put that quality control in place. There is no Robert Fripp or Jimmy Page or David Coverdale who cares and carefully curates and reviews what goes out there.
Or.. for example… “Yes” could say – we want the Gottleib’s involved in this, and for CTTE they could have drawn from all the material from the recent tour booklet.
So is this a case of… if the band don’t care, why should Rhino?
(I don’t mean to sound so cynical here, but I do think that is the case. And it is not meant to be a criticism of the Yes members, per se. I expect that most of them are rightly focused on their current work and not something they created 50 years ago.)
Interesting thoughts. We should, of course, be grateful that the band (current and former members) – and Roger Dean for that matter – are still concentrating on producing new work. I would prefer a blend of the two approaches but I can’t blame any of them for wanting still to be creative at their respective ages. I sincerely hope I remain as energetic as they are.
To piggyback off Mark’s answer, I will say my dream RSD 2026 Yes release would be a picture disc of Drama, with one side zoomed in on the kitties, and it would come with a glossy poster of this picture, where Geoff has his piano key windbreaker and silver jeans on. I did pick up the latest but more out of obligation to my local record store owner than the band at this point. He has been helpful in ordering in these recent Super Deluxe editions for me and I like to support his business. I feel similar to how John Thomson appreciates the community feel at the independent stores.
Excellent point about supporting local record stores. Thanks Rachel.
Also, great idea about Drama!
I don’t usually comment on here but I thought Mark and Jon were a bit harsher regarding the RSD release than I thought necessary. I’m not a vinyl collector so it never really was something I was interested in but, as soon as it was released I saw the show, thought it looked familiar and realized it was the same show as on the recent Deluxe Edition, which I bought a download of. So, I would imagine many of us 5%ers would already know what we were getting. The quality is what it is. The dropouts in Siberian Khatru were there in the pre-release single for the boxed set so we all had a chance to hear it before we paid for it. The option is not having that show. If there was a better show from that tour available it probably would have been used.
I will say that if I was a vinyl collector and was mainly getting this because of the packaging then, yes, I would probably be disappointed. I think Geoff Bailie is correct – Rhino is in it for profit and my guess is that, if Yes cared enough, they could ask to have input. If a single member of Yes had listened to the Fragile Boxed set before it was released, for example, “The Dean” would have been taken off. However, I’ve enjoyed the two deluxe sets I have (Fragile and CTTE) and will likely at some point also get the Yes Album and other ones moving forward.