DRAMA by Yes: Lost Classic or Justified Dud?

I think this is the only tour where the band often received boos and jeers...

Yes I would truthfully like to hear this. Carry on.

Sting, apparently.

http://www.marksmart.net/gearhack/sitar/sitar.html

http://youtube.com/watch?v=feJ6IwEZOPI&search=buggles

Trevor Horn - born to be a producer, not a frontman, alas

lol, i just listened to Does It Really Happen - that song rocks despite the daft lyrics. Squire's vocals are really up front on that one.
and Downes horn-like synth on the outro really paved the way for his immortal Only Time Will Tell bit with Asia.

i am a camera

all is meant to be

I *finally* found some mp3s of one of the Drama tour shows. It's really, truly and utterly embarassing because of Horn's inability to fill Anderson's shoes in a live setting. Had to get rid of said bootleg or else I'd never be able to listen to Drama again.

i'm getting all yessed out tonite - DAMN YOU, BOOZE!

Cannot listen to this album without skipping half of it. I can (and occasionally do) even listen to Tormato in one piece.

weird, this is easily one of their best, and so much better than tormato. this album is kind of evil and weird sounding most of the time! horn's vocals are great.

This album rules!

Alright, I'm going to listen to this tonight also

Steve Howe's guitar solo on "Temput Fugit" must be one of the best solos ever.

Fuck yeah!

Steve Howe's guitar solo on "Temput Fugit" must be one of the best solos ever.

-- Geir Hongro, Thursday, November 22, 2007 11:59 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fuck yeah!

-- Alex in NYC, Thursday, November 22, 2007 9:13 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

Good lord--Geir and Alex in agreement? Mark my words: The Apocalypse is nigh!

whatver J$NOT

hoho--like that's original!

I and Alex agree on most hip-hop, so it isn't a first. :)

have we mentioned that the Drama lineup (plus the new singer, and no Jon Anderson) is back?

http://heavyrocktheplaylist.blogspot.com/2011/03/yes-new-album-fly-from-here-out-in-july.html

I like this album, probably my 3rd fave after Yes Album and 90125.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JvCQ1kMjFQ

new album cover art to stare at while you are stoned:

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa176/akmonday/YES_-_FLY_FROM_HERE_COVER.jpg

Tracklist :
“Fly From Here – Overture”
“Fly From Here – Pt I – We Can Fly”
“Fly From Here – Pt II – Sad Night At The Airfield”
“Fly From Here – Pt III – Madman At The Screens”
“Fly From Here – Pt IV – Bumpy Ride”
“Fly From Here – Pt V – We Can Fly (reprise)”
“The Man You Always Wanted Me To Be”
“Life On A Film Set”
“Hour Of Need”
“Solitaire”
“Into The Storm”

Bonus track: "Twist and Shout"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR-DKEcDtt8

looking forward to this, despite the jon anderson impersonator lead singer. my faith in this band is pathological

Well, that excerpt playing thru the end sounds very close to the Buggles' "Fly From Here" so here's hoping at least the production has that old (late 70s) Trev Horn touch.

Steve Howe is so cadaverous

yeah he must be the oddest looking man in rock.

Alan White's developed a weird accent hasn't he?

he lives in portland or something and has for a long time, so maybe that has something to do with it (I didn't listen to this but I know he has lived in the US for ages)

iTunes has the whole thing up with 1+ minute excerpts for most songs

kinda sounds more buggles than yes with a little bit of asia thrown in, much more MOR than Drama
horn's production is pretty sweet so at least there's that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLkuKXt-nec

The excerpts sound ok. That new guy's voice ... nope. Too Dennis DeYoung for me.

wonder 1) if 'overture/part 1 - 6' will be one long epic or seven separate tracks and 2) how jon anderson feels about all this

"yesia," anderson mutters under his fairy breath, checking the record cover out

http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/2011/06/riding-tiger-review-of-fly-from-here.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCeEjUHi8Qs

they did some later tours in the round too...I think maybe an ABWH one?

xpost Indeed I think it is!

Tormato tour was disastrous? How so?
All the recordings from that tour I’ve listened to are excellent. Even the cornier tunes from the album go off.

Union tour was definitely in the round.

I may have said it before, but my earliest memory of Yes is either this clip of the band doing "Tempus Fugit", or a similar clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzxZzIiO84Y

It seems to have been shot on a prototype of the in-the-round stage shown above. You can see the whole thing at 2:29. If you were born in the mid-to-late 1970s there was a three-year period from 1980-1983 when Trevor Horn's version of Yes was the actual official Yes. And so for a long time that was my mental image of the band - especially when you bear in mind that they basically stopped being a commercial force in the UK after that point. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" barely cracked the top thirty. 90125 only made #16, fourteen places lower than Drama itself.

I remember really enjoying the album. It's like a blend of Yes and The Police. Horn even seems to be doing a Sting impersonation on "Man in a White Car". It was a perfectly legit go at updating their sound for the modern age. I think the crucial thing is that they tried to copy the more Yes-like elements of New Wave - two-thirds of The Police had been in actual prog rock bands - and they kept the synthesisers toned-down, so it doesn't badly dated. Unlike e.g. Tormato, which has some shockingly thin and weedy synthesisers.

I have the impression that Trevor Horn kept his natural control-freak tendencies in check while he was in Yes, but that couldn't have lasted, and wouldn't have worked in the long run because the rest of Yes were also control freaks. So they would have broken apart at some point. I can admire his guts for actually joining and staying with Yes for a while, because circa 1980 he was a one-hit wonder and they were a bunch of highly-talented assholes.