This post was made by Orb Sral on April 06, 2007 10:03 pm


Yo Scotty...
I just did a review of Yes's "Live In Montreux 2003" DVD.

Before I provide you with a homemade translation of the review I would like to say I actually like Yes, in particular the "rabin-years"...


xOSx

but anyways - here goes:

DVD-review:
Now, it's a given fact that YES fans can be rougly divided into two groups: TROOPERS and GENERATORS. TROOPERS prefer the early - or classic if you will - YES line-up, where there's experimenting with odds and bits and musically speaking a very high ceiling; Plus room enough for improvisations of the same lenght as a walk in the proverbial desert. GENERATORS, on the other hand, prefer the Trevor Rabin-period (Owner of a Lonely Heart aso.), where the music may have become a bit (some!) more poppy and tightly arranged, but where musical greatness certainly not has been sold to the highest bidder.
Who???
If you haven't got a clue whom YES is, please take a look at wikipedia's extensive coverage. The short version is something like this: They released their first album in '69 and fairly quickly achieved a reputation as "The Kings of ProgRock" with their many tempo-changes, melodic runs - unisonic as well as polyphonic and with heavy inspiration from classical music - and very advanced polyrhytmic patterns; Fairly tight arrangements but also with a room for improvisations out of this world - all of it performed with unparallelled equilibrism and playfull ease. Through the years though, there's been more substitutions in the line-up than you'd normally se in an ice-hockey game. Rumour has it that Rick Wakeman (keybards) has left the band "irrevocably" three or four times! Well..., he plays here
Surprisingly BAD!
It's THE classic line-up playing on this release: Ian Anderson (voc), Chris Squire (bass, voc), Rick Wakeman (keyboards), Alan White (drums) and Steve Howe (guitar), and that means that here we really have a load for The TROOPERS, because almost all of the songs are from the earliest - ie. early '70's - YES-albums, allthough there are a few songs from Keys To Ascension ('96) and Magninfication (2001). But that doesn't change the fact that there is not one single tidbit for The GENERATORS. And I think that that is a damn shame! Because even if this is a gang of outstanding musicians - and you're NOT left in doubt of that fact for a millisecond - the music doesn't move or swing as much as one bit. NOT - ONE - IOTA! There's more "go" in a Lada Samara
And it becomes doubly frustrating, when it's a disc you've been looking forward to reviewing and the musician doesn't fulfill one's well founded expectations - actually they're surprisingly BAD... It often happens during the concert that melodic runs that obviously should've been unison (all play the same bit of melody/riff at the same time), ends up in some un-tight fluttering about - actually worse that Ian Paisley's political hubbubs - and which these old men ought to be ashamed of. It really screams to high heaven here and there; a poorly organised high-school-band without self-critisism wouldn't have gone on stage with this, let alone releasing it on a DVD. It says in the cover-notes, that the band thinks that this particular gig should be "one of the finest ... ever played". If I ever encountered an eighteen-wheelerfull of drunken soggy bullshit, this is IT! It's a bloody disgrace, and I just cannot grasp that YES will put name to this.
The Sound is sublime - except at the very beginning, where Wakeman's keys are far too loud in the mix, but this is corrected very quickly though. After that the balance is perfect troughout the DVD. You'll find DTS, DolbyDigital 5.1 and PCM-stereo available, all of a very high quality, with DTS as the usual "winner". It has a beautifully defined and detailed top-end and superb "smack" in the lows - the DTS sounds just a little bit more airy and free and at the same time more tight and controlled than the others. I'll give it 5* out of 6.
Extra material ... nada! 0*.
The Picture is 16:9 format and very good indeed (I think it's been shot in HD, but it doesn't say so anywhere); camera-shots are good and you get to see a lot of the interesting bits close-up: 4*.
Conclusion:
Any TROOPER just have to own this disc - and he'll love every second of it. GENERATORS on the other hand can calmly leave this one on the shelf in the local record-store, knowing that it is - for all intents and purposes - hammeringly un-interesting, 'cause there isn't any of their favourites on it - not one!
OK, it IS the calssic line-up that's on-stage, and frankly speaking, I do have at least a little bit of understanding of the fact that they cannot be arsed to play any of Rabin's tight popsongs, but then again...
I think that THAT's the reason why it only is in two places that "it" really comes alive, and that's btw in Wakeman's solo and in White/Squire's combined ditto. The rest becomes a non-swinging, introvert, navel-digging and soul-less round of scale-wanking and therefore monumentally dead-arse-boring. Period.
Actually it shouldn't be awarded any stars at all, but the very fine sound and the great pics drag it up to 1*.
Track-list:
Siberian Khatru, Magnification, Don't Kill The Whale, We Have Heaven,
South Side Of The Sky, And You And I, To Be Over, Clap, Show Me,
Rick Wakeman Solo Medley, Heart Of The Sunrise, Long Distance Runaround,
The Fish, Awaken, I've Seen All The Good People, Roundabout.
Running time:Ca. 2h17min.

Yours truly


This post has been edited by Orb Sral on April 06, 2007 10:03 pm