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Yes - Yessongs (DVD) CD (album) cover

YESSONGS (DVD)

Yes

 

Symphonic Prog

3.73 | 202 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer
3 stars Since it is Christmas day, I will spend some time with some good old acquaintances. Let's start with "Yes".

The title of this DVD is somewhat tricky for the fans.

One can think of getting a complete show during this great tour, like the one available of the fantastic triple album (or double CD). These recordings were taken throughout their long '72 tour (featuring Brufford on two songs) and spread over several concerts.

The original video footage was shot during their London representations at the Rainbow theatre in December '72. It is quite surprising that so little of the concert was either captured or released.

This DVD really starts with "And U&I" as far as I'm concerned, which means that the first eleven minutes are of less interest: an animated intro, "Seen All Good People" which I never really praised much and the usual Howe's acoustic guitar solo. Of course the man is a guitar genius and the track featured on the video ("Clap") is different than the one from the CD ("Mood For A Day").

To have featured "The Six Wives Of Henri VIII Excerpts" on such a short version leaves me voiceless as well: why not have the full and brilliant version of "Starship Trooper" instead of this emasculated one of less than three minutes? A mystery!

Of course there is CTTE (it's the same one than on the audio recording) which remains one of the best prog epic ever written. Some fine video pictures during the intro and fine "smoke effects" like it was in use in those days during live shows. Might look old fashioned by now, but this was the way it was in the early seventies.

The other two great songs from this video are "Roundabout" and "Yours Is No Disgrace" (the encore) which features some phenomenal guitar work from Steve.

To have a global picture, you can add that image capture is not top notch, that lightning is average; which combined to a very short footage and a track list that could have been better leaves a good result but no more. Three stars.

ZowieZiggy | 3/5 |

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