Yesshows (1980)
Disc One
1. Parallels
2. Time and a Word
3. Going for the One
4. The Gates of Delirium
Disc Two
1. Don't Kill the Whale
2. Ritual ((Nous Sommes du Soleil)
3. Wonderous Stories
Yes’ first live album, 1973’s Yessongs was quite masterful in that covered the chunk of material that most fans would argue was the band’s best material of their best period. The fact that the thing was a triple album meant that just about everything could be included. This album contains mostly stuff from 1973-1978 which, when we’re really honest, wasn’t quite as good.
Don’t let the fact that this album contains only seven songs fool you. It is, in fact a double album, and there are no repeats from Yessongs. That fact makes this record a nice, hearty companion to the latter. If you love Yes, this album belongs in the “must have” category.
Still, though, it’s hard for me to enjoy anything too much with the horrid Don’t Kill the Whale on it. Nor do I care for a live album with anything from Tales From Topographical Oceans on it. Not only was that entire (double) album horrible, but each song was in the 20-25 minute range. They feature Ritual (Nous sommes du soleil) from that record here, and the goddang thing takes up so much space, they had to split the song on the original album between sides. In fact, the only thing on this album that I really like is the stellar The Gates of Delirium from Relayer.
They do feature one oldie but goodie, Time and a Word. It was a bit sad when the song was omitted from Yessongs. It’s a bit sadder to hear on this album as Rick Wakeman overdoes the keyboard parts in a very obtrusive way.
I would have swapped out some tracks, and probably would most. You couldn’t say the same thing for their first live album, so that fact by itself seems to make this one a bit inferior.
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