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Special Features
- Songs: Close to the Edge, Long Distance Runaround, Don't Go, In the Presence Of, Gates of Delirium, Steve Howe guitar solo (Vivaldi lute concerto in D 2nd movement, Mood for a Day), Starship Trooper, Magnification, And You and I, Ritual, I've Seen All Good People, Owner of a Lonely Heart, Roundabout
- "Dreamtime" documentary
- "Don't Go" bonus video
- Symphonic Live CD: Overture, Close to the Edge, orchestral intro, Long Distance Runaround, Don't Go, Starship Trooper, And You and I, I've Seen All Good People, Owner of a Lonely Heart, Roundabout
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
with a career that now spans five decades. Filmed in high definition, this
concert from 2001 captures the band accompanied by a full orchestra for the first time in their career in support of their
symphonic album Magnification . As well as tracks from that album the band present unique new versions of their
classic tracks. Yes concerts have always had a power and grandeur that few other bands can match and this show with the
full orchestra takes them to an even higher level that can now be appreciated in its full glory on Blu-ray. TRACK LISTING 1) Overture 2) Close To The Edge 3) Long Distance
Runaround 4) Don t Go 5) In The Presence Of 6) Gates Of Delirium 7) Steve
Howe Guitar Solo 8) Starship Trooper 9) Magnification 10) And You And I
11) Ritual 12) I ve Seen All Good People 13) Owner Of A Lonely Heart
14) Roundabout
Bonus Features: 30 minute Dreamtime documentary / Promo Video for Don t Go
Customer Reviews
The concert starts with an overture by the orchestra, that is not visible at that moment. The background is a Roger Dean-like landscape.
After the intro the band starts with the epic Close to the Edge and, immediately, you sense the asset the orchestra is for this song. It brought tears in my eyes from emotion to see young orchestra members with such dedication to music that was written before they were even born. Also on screen there appear icons for animation in the background and there are multiple camera-angles in this song possible.
Next is Long Distance Runaround from the Fragile album with a beautiful orchestra opening that is really an asset to the song.
From the new album Magnification they played Don't go first. I think it's not their most powerful track of the album and it surprised me the song did it live very well.
In the Presence Off, also from their latest album, are, together with Dreamtime, my favourites. In arrangement and length it's a 2001 Yes semi-epic.
Then, oh my God, finally, after all these years, Gates of Delirium is been introduced. Together with C.T.T.E this is the mother of all Yes epics. Tom Brislin really showed his craftsmanship in the "war" part of the song. This is a perfect song to play with an orchestra and you can hear that they do a perfect job in the changeover from the "war" part to the "peace" part of the song .Soon oh Soon let's the song end in a sea of tranquillity. Multi-camera angles and animations of war are also visible during this song.
After this epic we are attended by maestro Steve Howe and he entertains us with his guitar virtuoso by playing two songs of his solo albums.
Another golden oldie is Starship Trooper from the Yesalbum. During this song the orchestra has leave of absence and immediately you get an "unplugged" feeling when they are not there. The harmonies are perfect in this song and the only drawback is the shifting from the 1st layer to the second layer on the DVD and the lack of the Wakeman solo on his moog during the end of the song because Brislin played it a little thin in my opinion.
Anderson states that the day before they played the next song for the first time live and he introduces the title track of their last album; Magnification. One of the highlights of their album and played perfectly on stage.
It's back to 1972 with And You And I. Played live a zillion times but never lost it's charisma. In the multi-camera angle you can see animation with 2 robots.
If you haven't seen this, you ain't seen nothing yet ; Ritual, from the "Tales" album is one of the four tracks of this double album and one of two, for me, accessible tracks. The drum part in the middle with Anderson, Squire, Brislin and White makes it an attraction of the first order. What an energy pours out of that song!
From the time of it's first release on the Yesalbum "I,ve Seen All Good People"has always been a great rock song that survived decades of rock history. So get up and boogie: as Anderson says in the intro to the audience.
... with all the cameras rolling, Steve had to make concessions and "Owner" was played before the last song from this evening; Roundabout from the Fragile album. During this song the stage is filled with all the members of the orchestra waving and dancing on the music and expressing their joy of being part of performing in timeless music by a timeless band.
Yes, what a wonderful, magical evening it was. Every bit of it captured on a perfect DVD.
The occasion, as most reading this will know, is the 2001 Yes Symphonic Tour - in this case a concert in Amsterdam. The fact that the shoot took place in Europe adds to the enjoyment, as audiences in this part of the hemisphere tend actually to listen to music rather than to yell and scream while it is happening. This removes most irritating aural distractions from the listener's perspective, and avoids elimination problems at the production end.
The idea of Yes appearing with an orchestra was greeted with understandable scepticism in some quarters. The possibilities of overkill, mismatch or descent into musak were enough to make anyone who cares about their music nervous. Fortunately, composer Larry Groupe handles arrangements of classic material with taste and restraint, and the young European Festival Orchestra under Wilhelm Kietel was well settled in by the time this was filmed. Indeed they seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. It is good to be able to hear what they add. This was not always possible as a member of the audience.
The highlights of the concert are undoubtedly superb versions of three 20-minute Yes epics: `Close To The Edge', `Gates of Delirium' (from `Relayer') and `Ritual' (from `Tales From Topographic Oceans'). The playing and the mix are top notch here. What's more, director Aubrey Powell understands the need to ensure that visual and musical events are in synch. Obvious maybe, but not evident on past Yes video outings. Those who dismiss Yes as sound and fury signifying little might not be entirely assuaged by these performances, but is difficult for some of us not to be moved by the grandeur, ambition and architecture of their sound - even if we may have moved beyond the moment in time that was progressive rock in other ways.
`And You And I', `Long Distance Runaround' (with a rather incongruous cinematic orchestral prelude) and `Starship Trooper' also come off well, even if they emphasise the fact that bassist Chris Squire's dress sense is as laughably misguided as ever. Steve Howe provides a good acoustic guitar interlude with the Spanish strains of `Mood For A Day' and his arrangement of the second movement of Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D major. The latter makes me slightly anxious, as it doesn't really do justice to the original. But it has a few interesting harmonic quirks to enliven interest. The new material (from the `Magnification', album, 2001) is mixed in its live realisation. The longish `In The Presence Of' works well, especially the driving coda. Only the cloying opening theme lets it down. `Don't Go' is a frivolous add-on, frankly. The title track sounds pretty good here, but it lost its accents and embellishments in the actual concerts. The ability to mix the orchestra better on this DVD/video production helps enormously.
At the end, Yes throw in a surprise `Owner Of A Lonely Heart' (without orchestra) as well as the ubiquitous `All Good People' and `Roundabout', on which the orchestra re-appear to jive engagingly in the background. Steve Howe is clearly none-too-keen on his role in the Trevor Rabin-era material, and who can blame him? For the most part he strums, allowing keyboards sideman Tom Brislin - who plays wonderfully throughout - to adapt the mid-song solo through some judicious synth pitch bending. Howe returns at the end to add something much more guitaritic, but in his own style.
This DVD features the entire concert, Jon Anderson's amusingly off-kilter between-song patter included. There are visual augmentations available, but thankfully you can switch these distractions off, put your feet up and focus on the playing of all concerned. And with a set list like this, who wouldn't want to?
One final, pedantic point. Though the word symphonic is used carelessly as a synonym for everything involving a larger-than-chamber orchestra these days, this is in fact `Yes orchestral'. There have been laboured attempts to find sonata form in their longer works. But everyone knows that they were not written with that intent, and the symphonic moniker misses the point. Yes at their best (on the three classic albums from which over an hour of this superb film is taken) are powerful and inventive in their own right. They do not need misplaced attributions from other genres to make the credible. Yes may look aged, but their sound has continuing vitality. Check it out.
Update: I do need to clarify - the amount of imagery is not staggering in context of the entire concert, which looks and sounds fantastic! But there is more than a few seconds of interruptions - for example, "Close to the Edge" has two animated sections that are each almost a minute long, and "The Gates of Delirium" battle sequence has two straight minutes of animation. There may be more, I didn't finish watching it. So, your patience for seeing this imagery will certainly vary from mine, but I watch a Yes concert to see the performers play, not to witness animations and video feeds obscure the experience. If such imagery doesn't bother you, then grab and enjoy this title!
Amazing how in sync everyone was. And having a good time doing it.
I've always been a Yes fan, I recommend it, I enjoyed it...
Missed Rick Wakeman but the orchestra sounded great with them. It was great to see themplay "Ritual".
