HOUSE OF YES: LIVE FROM HOUSE OF BLUES

This is a very good live album, which includes songs from the "classic" albums ("The YES album", "Fragile", "Close to the Edge"), one of the "Pop Rock" albums ("Cinema" and "Owner of a Lonely Heart"), two very little versions of two old songs, played by Anderson/Khoroshev ("Time and a word" and "Ritual-Nous Sommes du soleil"), one song from "Going for the one" ("Awaken"), plus 5 songs from the 1999 album "The Ladder", all recorded live in October 31, 1999, in "The House of Blues",in Las Vegas. The recording is good, but the keyboards are mixed lower than the rest of the instruments. All the songs from "The Ladder" sound better played live, particularly "It Will be a good day", which has an extended guitar solo by Howe at the end of the song. As I went to see YES playing in concert in my city in late September 1999, and as I had read in the Internet that they played "Awaken" in their previous South American concerts in that tour, I expected to hear "Awaken" played here in concert, but they played "Close to the Edge" instead (which is also announced by a sticker in the cover as being included in this album, but it is not true). So, the main reason to buy this album was to hear "Awaken" played by this line-up (apart from "It will be a good day", a song I like a lot). Igor Khoroshev does a very good job in "Awaken", but also in all the other songs, showing that he could play songs from any period of YES sounding very good. Billy Sherwood was mainly a rhythm guitarist, sometimes playing the same notes as Squire, but he also plays lead guitar , playing Rabin`s solo in "Cinema" and "Owner of a lonely heart" (with also a guitar solo by Howe at the end of "Owner..."), and also shares guitar solos with Howe in "The Messenger". The credits say that all 6 musicians of the band sang, so the vocals are "strong". This concert was also released in D.V.D. and V.H.S. videos (none of which I have seen yet). This album brings me very good memories of seeing YES live in 1999, as they played almost the same songs included in this album.