Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
YES PLAYS IT SAFE WITH HALF-HEARTED UNPLUGGED SET, February 19, 2005
Hmmmm. What you're considering buying is actually in reality a video-EP. It's short, real short. A little over a half hour's worth of performance. Hardly your money's worth. I love Yes' music, but the thing is this: Yes are tired. This material could have been released as extra features on a regular length DVD.
But these guys aren't done milking their current 35th anniversary era. What it seems to me is that Yes are stalling for time, unable to move forward into making a new studio album. Playing it safe. Safe is the current line-up, the 'Classic Yes' with Rick Wakeman. But since he's returned it's been one long reunion tour(2002 until recently), two - soon to be three- live dvd's, one box set(In A Word) and one smaller 2 and a 1/2 disc set(Ultimate Yes). But nothing exciting or new. This DVD is merely more product. A stop gap release, no more or less. For me personally, Yes were always at their best when they were excited and hungry for change and growth in their music, and much of the time it has been without the 'Classic Yes' line-up. The Drama era, 90125/Rabin-era, Sherwood/Ladder era and the symphonic 2001 era come to mind. These periods in the band's history were anything but 'safe'. They were going against the grain of expectation, going against the 'Fragile-and-nothing-else' type fan base.
The sound quality is pretty good however. And Rick's piano performance during 'South Side Of The Sky' is nice. Jon Anderson hams it up too much and makes for embarrassing viewing in mixed company. Is he high? Some other reviewer mentioned Las Vegas and I can see it. Steve looks(and even plays) like he'd rather be somewhere else. Alan White looks like he's having fun doing his job and Chris is Chris. The song selection is pretty much the acoustic set from the live shows of the recent tours. A lot of material from 1971's 'Fragile', A new Jon solo song called 'Show Me' which the band is doing as a new Yes song, a decent version of 'All Good People' and an overlooked recent track from 2001's 'Magnification'('Time Is Time'). The cringe factor in the opening soundcheck 'Tiger Rag' is dangerously high. When they get done noodling and hamming it up, you pretty much get a half hour disc. I haven't brought myself to watch the Rick Wakeman commentary feature yet.
All in all a disappointment. Could have been a lot better if the band had spent some time on this and offered a proper hour's worth of acoustic 'Yes Unplugged' instead, as a lot of their music would have benefitted from this aproach. 'The Ancient', 'Holy Lamb', 'From The Balcony', 'Madrigal', 'Turn Of The Century' and 'Time & A Word' are just some tracks that also could have worked well. Too bad they played it safe and put out product instead. Actually they should have waited for the right time, but they miss the opportunity and sold themselves short. Pass this by unless you're a Yes completist like me.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sounds unusual, but definitely Yes!, September 7, 2004
This is a very good DVD revealing a new side of Yes music - their old hits gain new life in acoustic version. The sound is a bit unusual for this group - it has warm jazzy feel, and is very natural. No distortion devices are used, and one can hear the real sound of the instruments. All components of the DVD are exceptional: video, audio mix, design/menus and special features: rehearsal footage narrated by Rick.
The only drawback is the concert being too short, but it was the limitation of satellite transmission.
Anyway, I enjoyed every minute of this show.
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38 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Shark Sandwich, April 27, 2005
It is very difficult to digest one helf-assed tongue-in-cheek effort after another, being generated by a band that, during the 1970s, defined greatness and innovation while creating and performing music that transcended adjectives and left one non-plus at its peak level. Their legacy as the paragon of progressive virtuoso art rock is gradually being tainted...erased, just like the faces of Michael J. Fox's siblings were erased in the photo that J took back to 1955. To say that this band harks back wearily to their old selves is like saying Kirstie Allie gained a couple of pounds since Cheers. Yes still kicks ass on tour, but their video products drive me up a wall; the gates to A-V delerium are wide open now.
For instance, in the Yessongs video/DVD, the person working the video console made it a point to record the musician that was, at that particular moment, doing the least-like when Chris Squire is kicking his legs in the air and drilling double-picked notes up and down the fret board, the film is showing Steve Howe resting his hands on his knees, smiling, staring into space, contemplating Roy Clarke and brussel sprouts. Of course, another Yes DVD represented a pretty good performance that ended up as a complete waste as a DVD--as the sound and the video masters were out of synch. It made me want to go to the front of the line at the BSE Diner, or a rendering plant that was closed down for Brucellosis. I believe the symphonic effort was an exception to the general malaise of the last two decades.
This recent acoustic effort was a nice gathering-turned-moolah. It appeared unispired, like a post-prandial yawn-turned-belch, but perhaps that is because I expect so much from my childhood music idols. As well, maybe I still have the "Old Man in the Sea" copper bad taste in my mouth from observing the non-stop conveyor belt series of Yes compilations..a series of differently-packaged ho-hum collections that turn up in the "where are they now" bin at Wal*Mart two weeks after release. After all, Yes predated Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and a good percentage of their fans are collecting social security. I guess the new covers that accompany the old re-wrapped songs are novel and cool. Frankly, I pine for the days when Chris was taller than he was wide, when Rick had Heinekins resting on his Melotron, when Steve weighed more than a sheet of Saran Wrap, when Alan had hair, and when certain band members were tripping on orange sunshine. I could use a little Tony Kaye elbow grease right about now, or perhaps some grandiose arpeggios from Moraz, and even a few broken-English one line diatribe from Igor.
One looks in Jon Anderson's eyes and sees a guy who punches the clock and then winds up the quasi-disingenuous ethereal pretense that only works if one is at least somewhat mobile and at least somewhat high-whether naturally or artifically. While Jon, has lost falsetto, he refuses to abandon it. Instead of making the necessary adjustments, Jon now carries an ersatz croupe on stage with him, where he pictures his youthful fed-up wife as she waits at home, warming up to complain about his staying out too late and having the Master Card rejected at Bloomingdale's. Stop spending out of control, Jon--you can do it, bud. Lordy. It was discomforting to see Jon during this acoustic effort, attempt to remember the cities to which the performance was broadcast--as if he was a drooling confabulating Alzheimer's victim, dysrhythmic and inconsistent synapses abound. Frankly, I would have been happy if Jon had turned around and threw his shoe at Alan's drum set, as White, despite Jon's repeitive urging, would not stop his OCD-like drumming during the sound check.
Frankly, I have seen these guys 40 times and I am happy to make it 41, because they're still tight and smoking in concert, where they leave you satisfied--diametrically opposed to their disc products since circa 90125/ABWH. It's like an episode of Curb your Enthusiasm, where the actors play themselves in a comedy show after their careers are over. As the members of Yes continue to unwittingly parody themselves, one expects even more fluff to come: "The Ladder": A Tower Records simulcast rock opera starring a bunch of out-of-control time-traveling munchkins who smoked a little too much angel dust. Of course,
this is followed-up two months later by the audio CD of the movie, which is really another compliation of old Yes Music--but played with kazoos. Three months later, we will celebrate the release of the ULTIMATE Ultimate Yes. For this CD, the song list will have been picked by all prior members named Trevor and a clique of on-line groupies.
After that, a full length movie called Magical Mystery Disaster, in which the members of Yes, in cartoon form, travel the Tibetan country-side with Whitley Strieber, Al Franken, Phyllus Diller, and Yanni, to aid distressed ox-cartists. As they change oxen harnesses and secure towing to the nearest local fix-it hut, they brainstorm more complilation projects--subtitled in Mandarin. Meanwhile, the genuinely spectacular audiovisual material filmed for the Fish out of Water LP with Moraz, Squire, and, I believe, the LSO, remains rotting to bits in a rusty can somewhere in Squire's attick...by now, probably eaten by a variety of long-toothed lagomorphs.
This latest acoustic tax write-off from Yes gets one star, simply because it is compared to prior Yes greatness. This effort's negative corporate slapped-together vibe can be extracted only via use of a cleansing protocol that features an experienced exorcist, a four hour shower, Lava soap with pumice, and all six sides of Yessongs--played in LP form, complete with pops and scratches, turned up to blood-curdling maximum volume during "The Fish" bass solo.
Ross L.
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