Freedom to Music
Yes – 9012 Live: The Solos (1985) (@192)
18 Oct 2007
(Review from progarchives.com)
As it says on the sleeve, this live album focuses on solo performances by the band members. Taken out of the context of a complete concert and bundled together in this way, such pieces can quickly lose much of the appeal they had in that environment. A lengthy bass solo can sound wonderful when placed between a couple of classic tracks, but much less so when it comes after keyboards solo, a guitar solo, and a preceding bass solo! On the plus side though, the first track on each side of the LP is actually a band performance albeit from the “90125″ album.
We open with a decent rendition of “Hold on”, not one of the band’s best known songs by any means, but it does feature strong harmonies, and sounds pretty good in a live environment. Quickly though, we are then into three solo spots in a row. Tony Kaye keeps his brief both in title (“Si”) and substance, being little more than a synthesizer fanfare. Trevor Rabin’s “Solly’s beard” is an acoustic guitar flourish reminiscent of the Steve Howe’s solo spots. Jon Anderson’s solo is the soft vocal section from “Gates of Delirium” subtitled “Soon”. It is a lovely part of the track, but sounds all the better when contrasted against the bombastic chaos which usually precedes it.
Side two has just three tracks. “Changes” is the band song on this side, and the most orthodox Yes song on the album. Trevor Rabin takes on the initial lead vocals, his voice sounding rather like John Wetton’s, leading to a bit of an Asia feel. Chris Squire’s turn at centre stage is a short feedback laden rendition of “Amazing Grace” Gollowed by a duet with Alan White entitled “Whitefish”. The title reflects White’s surname and Squire’s Fish nickname. The track itself is not really new though, being an 8 minute variant on Squire’s solo spot on “Fragile”, an elongated version of which previously appeared on “Yessongs”.
Not an album for anyone, this one is really for the Yes faithful, and even then the absence of Wakeman and Howe will cause many to question further this album’s validity. Despite all its faults though, there is enough here to make this a Yes album worth having.
Line-up:
- Jon Anderson / vocals
- Chris Squire / bass and vocals
- Tony Kaye / keyboards
- Alan White / drums
- Trevor Rabin / guitars and vocals
Track List:
01. Hold On (6:57)
02. SI (2:40)
03. Solly’s Beard (4:39)
04. Soon (2:18)
05. Changes (7:00)
06. Amazing Grace (2:10)
07. Whitefish (8:40)
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about 6 years ago
MP3!
Filesonic -> http://tinyurl.com/3m272ug
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Password -> sakalli
about 5 years ago
thanx
about 4 years ago
A better idea would be the complete live album of the concert in which these tracks were taken including these solo spots. This is still pretty cool to have though.
I recommend the Yes DVD “9021Live”. This has the concert but not the solo spots. I suppose someone could mix the audio from each release and make a “complete show” CD.