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Yes Tracks Through Time – Yessongs – 481

Our live selection this week

Produced by Jeffrey Crecelius, Wayne Hall and Preston Frazier

After the sad news we shared last week about Phil Naro, Mark and I have decided to listen to parts of Yessongs this week and compare the performances with later live offerings. It’s what we’ve done before in our Yes Tracks Through Time series.

Most Yes fans agree that Yessongs captures the band at its best and it often comes top in the best live albums lists and polls but what about other versions of these classic songs?

  • Is Yessongs really the only live record worth listening to?
  • What radically different performances exist?
  • Are they just as enjoyable?

Listen to the episode and let us know what you think!

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Show notes and links:

An extract from the new box set of ‘Return’ in which Rick mentions Nic:

Join us in August to record episode 500 here:

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is img_4749-1024x680.jpg
Lewis Clarke / West Devon : Yes Tor / CC BY-SA 2.0

Lots more details to follow…


YMP Patrons:

Producers:

  • Jeffrey Crecelius
  • Preston Frazier and
  • Wayne Hall

Patrons:

Aaron Steelman

Dave Owen

Mark James Lang

Paul Tomei

Joost Maglev

David Heyden

Martin Kjellberg

Paul Wilson

Bob Martilotta

Lind

Michael O’Connor

William Hayes
Brian Sullivan

David Pannell

Miguel Falcão

Lobate Scarp

Chris Bandini

David Watkinson

Neal Kaforey

Rachel Hadaway

Craig Estenes

Dem

Paul Hailes

Mark ‘Zarkol’ Baggs

Doug Curran

Robert Nasir

Fergus Cubbage

Scott Colombo

Fred Barringer

Scott Smith
Geoff Bailie

Simon Barrow
Geoffrey Mason

Stephen Lambe

Guy R DeRome

Steve Dill

Henrik Antonsson

Steve Perry

Hogne Bø Pettersen

Steve Rode

IanNB

Steve Scott

Jamie McQuinn

Steven Roehr

Ken Fuller

Terence Sadler

Michael Handerhan

Tim Stannard

Jim

Todd Dudley

John Cowan

Tony Handley

John Holden

Joseph Cottrell

John Parry

Keith Hoisington

John Thomson

Barry Gorsky

Alan Begg



Robert and David

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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

2 replies on “Yes Tracks Through Time – Yessongs – 481”

Great show as always gentleman,
Very cool to go back and listen to these great works.
I remember when Yessongs came out in theaters and going to see it was amazing back then. Having already played through the album it was great to see the band that I love play live.
I must say I do have my favorite live performances, thus being 1976 seeing them perform Gates, Sound Chaser, Ritual live at cobo hall detroit,michigan that would later come on Yesshows. Not sure why these shows were not made on video but I can tell you that they were amazing. However just the three or four years difference between yessongs and yesshows was like leaps and bounds. Then move fast forward to 2001 and the symphonic show’s well could not agree more, breathtaking, wonderful,amazing, you get the idea.
That to me makes Yes just an amazing act to go see live because its always about the music and will always be about the music.
I see bands today as more of a theatrical play and not being all in on just the music. Yes is so much more than just a band they are musicians first and foremost and anyone that has seen this band live knows that music is first and that’s what makes them so damn good live!

While Close to the Edge was the first Yes music I listened to (and it made me realize what music was!), it was Yessongs that really sold me on the band. That they could play that music live, with that energy, amazed me! Perpetual Change is my favorite on Yessongs. I have to see if I can find a more recent live version to compare it to.

PS. Glad to hear Mark mention the video of Howe and Squire’s equipment. It makes it so clear that Steve plays a steel guitar in concert now–not a pedal steel and definitely not a lap steel, unless he could fit that steel guitar on his lap! 🙂

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