THE WORD IS LIVE

A Box Set with mostly previously unreleased live recordings of diverse quality that YES released in 2005. It covers recordings done between 1970 and 1988, the years on which YES was signed to Atlantic / Atco Records. The tracks "Then" and "For Everyone" were previously. released in the "Something`s Coming" and "Beyond and Before -The BBC Recordings 1969-70" albums from 1997-98. The rest of the tracks, as long as I know, were officially released for the first time in this Box Set. Most of the tracks are interesting for my taste, but, as I mentioned before, the quality of the recordings varies. I have to say that until the late eighties-nineties the quality of the recordings of most official live albums released by YES left a bit to be desired. Not only the recordings were not very good but the mixings were not very good too. The same happens with most of these live recordings, with the exception of the live recordings done in 1988 (which I previously recorded from the radio in 1989; in fact, these recordings complete some of the live recordings from 1988 done in Houston which were previously released in the "Yesyears" (1991) Boxset, but still leaving as unreleased tracks some other songs from the same concert). I think that the recordings from 1970 and 1971, despite sounding well, are Mono recordings. The rest of the songs are Stereo recordings.

There are several line-ups of the band included in the recordings used in this Box Set: the original line-up (Anderson, Banks, Bruford, Kaye and Squire), "The Yes Album" line-up (Anderson, Bruford, Howe, Kaye and Squire), the "Relayer" album line-up (Anderson, Howe, Moraz, Squire and White), the "Going for the One" and "Tormato" albums line-up (Anderson, Howe, Squire, Wakeman and White), the "Drama" album line-up (Downes, Horn, Howe, Squire and White), and the "90125" and Big Generator" albums line-up (Anderson, Kaye, Rabin, Squire and White). As the "Fragile" and "Close to the Edge" albums line-up (Anderson, Bruford, Howe,Squire and Wakeman) was previously presented in three tracks in the "Yessongs" album, I think that it was the reason it was left out of this Box Set, but I think that it could have been very interesting to listen to live versions of songs like "Heart of the Sunrise" and "Rondabout" done live by this line-up.

One really can listen to some differences in the playing of some live tracks by different line-ups. For example, the live versions of "Astral Traveller" and "Everydays" are played with Steve Howe on guitar and I really prefer the live versions with Peter Banks on guitar from the BBC albums. "Siberian Khatru" is played with Patrick Moraz on keyboards, but I prefer the live versions recorded with Rick Wakeman."Soon" (from "The Gates of Delirium") was played with Rick Wakeman in the "Big Medley" from 1979, but I prefer the live recordings done with Patrick Moraz.

Fortunately, they only included live recordings of the "Drama " album line-up playing songs which originally were only played by that line-up (with "We Can Fly from Here" and "Go Through This" being songs that they only played live during that tour and they did not include studio versionsof them in the "Drama " album), because now it is very known that Trevor Horn did not sing old songs from YES very well. The live version of "Awaken" from 1979 included in this Box Set is very good, in my opinion, and the live tracks from Houston 1988 done during the "Big Generator" tour are very good. The same could be said of "Sweet Dreams" done by the "Relayer" album line-up in 1975.

So, while not being a "perfect" live Box Set in the general quality of the performances and of the recordings, this Box Set it is a very enjoyable listening experience.It also could be a very good Box Set for the most die-hard fans of the band.