Yes - Relayer

though this solo piano performance of "Sound Chaser" is nuts and only highlights just how insane that tune is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqR0AP7A_l4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ-ktGaWYlg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLDdHhwB5A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MRetcp22uc

A friend in high school had the Complete Yes sheet music book and the Relayer charts looked like those Lovecraft books that drive people crazy.

I do find it funny that despite Yes releasing some two dozen live albums in their career that they hardly hit these songs at all, it's almost as if they're too difficult to actually play live.

― Maggie killed Quagmire (collest baby ever) (frogbs), Tuesday, 17 June 2014 03:49 (8 hours ago) Permalink

I suspect that they do find it difficult to play these songs live, even though they have played some of the material live in the past. There was an interview with Steve Howe a couple of months ago where he hinted at this...

Have you discussed doing other albums besides doing ‘Fragile’?

Well yeah, I mean, given more time…we’ve been so busy with the record and also the touring getting around to Canada and Europe with the first three albums that we’ve ever done in one show. They wanted it, so we start with it, but originally we thought by this year we’d be doing three different albums. That’s quite adventurous and that’s why we’re changing albums gradually if you like.
Obviously, we could do ‘Drama,’ ‘Fragile’ and the one that everybody wants to hear is ‘Relayer.’ But we’re not ready for that yet. ‘Relayer’ would be a heck of a challenge. We’d most probably need many weeks of rehearsal and preparation to do that. So at the moment we haven’t got the time or the inclination yet to do something like that. But I’d love to do some of ‘Tales,’ I think [playing sides] one and four would be a great way of doing ‘Tales,’ because it’s the beginning and the end.

But I don’t know — we’re not going to do any of those things at the moment. I’m not even sure what we’re going to do next year, because we’re not even talking about next year. This year we’ve mapped out loosely what we’re going to do.

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/steve-howe-interview-2014/

And that piano performance of 'Sound Chaser' is just gloriously nuts!

As is the band performance from 1975. Wow.

Yeah... amazing to think that there was a time that this music could go Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic.

The band also make playing the compositions look effortless in those 1975 performance clips. It kinda fascinates me that there sometimes comes a point where a musician struggles with compositions that he or she had written and performed.

ELP is the band that most famously fell off the ability cliff and couldn't play their own stuff. Whereas I saw VDGG last year, in their mid sixties, and it was maybe the most ferocious gig I've ever attended

That's been the frustration with Yes, hasn't it? ELP fell off the cliff for a few reasons - Emerson's numerous botched hand surgeries, Lake's voice deteriorating almost overnight, the band's inability to just jettison members that weren't pulling their weight. Yes maybe weren't up to Relayer speed but listening to say Keys to Ascension it's clear that they still had the ability to play this stuff, they just weren't interested in writing it anymore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwUNImtLV9c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scuhTWQ842M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22NQm-wnUa4

Has anyone here heard the recent stereo remaster or surround sound version of this yet?

I'd like to hear that too, I've always thought the original was a little too thin and farty sounding.

steven wilson has a golden touch

+1

i feel sorry for people who build their identity around their interest in / love of music but can't or won't "get" this record. it's really sad

Silly human race

on a sailing ship to nowhere

I'd like to hear that too, I've always thought the original was a little too thin and farty sounding.

― MaresNest, Saturday, January 31, 2015 4:35 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've always felt like the sound on Going For The One could have been much improved, actually... there's something really muffly and flat sounding about that album, IMO.

I kind of want to listen to the isolated guitar track from "South Side of the Sky" all night. If I can find it.

Just started The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock by David Weigel, and the prologue takes place on a prog cruise, where an "anorak" band plays "The Gates of Delirium," and Chris Squire watches from the audience and gets teary-eyed.

Okay, I might have to pick up Weigel's book just for that scene. But really, who "covers" Gates of Delirium?

I once saw some anonymous band in a park pavilion cover "Supper's Ready" in its entirety. They were kinda loose and basement band-y, but still really amazing that someone would cover that one.

But really, who "covers" Gates of Delirium?

― doug watson, Monday, June 19, 2017 1:33 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm up for watching any band try to attempt it, even if they fuck it up.

Kings Of Leon

Of course, that would be unbeatable comedy value. I don't think they'd get as far as a rehearsal, they'd just listen to it and go "nah, fuck that!"

moraz kinda sucked live, huh?

I once saw some anonymous band in a park pavilion cover "Supper's Ready" in its entirety. They were kinda loose and basement band-y, but still really amazing that someone would cover that one.

― smug dinner-jazz atrocity (Dan Peterson), Monday, June 19, 2017 9:09 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha that's a pretty big bite

xpost Pretty much. His synths always seemed to be waaay out of tune and his playing pretty sloppy.

IIRC I thought Moraz sounded pretty great on Yesshows.

Some days I think this is the best progressive rock album ever made.

stretches of "sound chaser" are the strangest (competent) rock music ever recorded

It feels like everyone on the record is angrily playing at the very edge of their capabilities all at once.

on that song and in parts of "gates of delirium" for sure. 'soon' is ethereal as uh hell and "to be over" is one of their most hymn-y songs, up there with "awaken"

I once saw some anonymous band in a park pavilion cover "Supper's Ready" in its entirety. They were kinda loose and basement band-y, but still really amazing that someone would cover that one.

― smug dinner-jazz atrocity (Dan Peterson), Monday, June 19, 2017 9:09 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha that's a pretty big bite

― Universal LULU Nation (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, June 19, 2017 8:53 PM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wrong record, but this always makes me smile, talk about a project...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhqWpaW9s4o

and "sound chaser" even sounds more competitive (in a friendly way) than angry sometimes, like 'take that, john mclaughlin' and 'we see you coming, orthrelm!'

xpost

'Soon' and 'To Be Over' are totally necessary, no doubt about that. The calm parts make the aggressive parts feel more aggressive.

agreed w/ all of you, Relayer seemed like the moment Yes were about to blast off the planet

I like Going For The One a lot, but just imagine if Relayer had been their last record!

the legend of roger dean would be even immenser

not counting GfTO they still had four more or less classics to go though -- drama, 90125, the ladder, and fly from here. and there's even decent stuff on tormato, talk, and union

Drama and 90125 could've easily been not Yes records.

same with fly from here. horn is golden, like if the beatles had reunited and eno joined not just produced them

Drama is probably their most underrated record at this stage.

Fly From Here is close tho.

I want to like Drama, think it sounds really nice but the songs just don't hit me at all

if you could see all the roads i have traveled towards some unusable last equilibrium . . .

run like an athlete and die like a deadbeaten speed freak