Yes: Symphonic Live [DVD] [2008]

The songs are performed very well and are received with great love by an audience spanning all the generations.

Of course, the major attraction to this concert (apart from the novelty of hearing Yes play with an orchestra for the first time since 1969), is the performance of both Gates of Delirium (from 1974's Relayer) and Ritual (from 1973's Tales From Topographic Oceans). They are both performed with great gusto from band and orchestra alike.

Having seen the band on the Magnification tour just up the road in Birmingham, I was subjected (with a wide grin on my face) to the lower bowel-extracting bass frequencies of Chris Squire's bass pedals and Rickenbacker 4001 rumblings. This is what Yes is all about - awesome power one minute and heavenly tranquillity the next. The DVD does capture this live atmosphere.

The band is on very good form. Jon Anderson continues to defy time by singing better than ever. Steve Howe plays like the consummate professional he is. It would be nice if he looked like he enjoyed it occasionally, but that's just our Steve. Chris is his usual tongue-in-cheek showman self, backing-up his clowning around with an inventiveness all too absent in music nowadays. He really is the Bach of the bass guitar! Alan puts in a sterling performance in his role as effective band-leader. Tom Brislin's shines as session keyboard player. His knowledge and love of Yes music is clear, as he plays the parts with the right mix of respect to the original and improvisation.

Regarding the DVD itself, the sound balance is just right, with the orchestra up in the mix where appropriate and providing subtle backing to the band at other times. The camera work is excellent, with cameras positioned all around the stage and audience. We get to see Steve working his effects pedals, Alan's drum kit from just behind his head, Chris working his bass pedals and all sections of the orchestra. Musicians will love it.

The animation effects are very tasteful on this DVD (and are not obligatory). When they are active, they fade in and out at the right times musically-speaking.

The extra DVD includes the Don't Go promo video along with the half hour documentary about the band. It's nice to see Alan being interviewed more substantially than he has been previously. Some of the comments are quite frank and refreshing and there is even an 'outtakes' section at the end.

All in all, this is a very good DVD and is certainly worth the price. Yes fans will love it. Yes critics will hate it. The open-minded will learn to love it. Buy it!

We know their songs so well now that, as Jon is keen to impart to us, they have taken on an almost spiritual quality and to hear them sung live is an experience to be relished. How much longer can the band continue ? They show no sign of wanting to let go of the legacy they have created.

I must own up to being a Wakeman fan and consider the group incomplete without him behind the keyboards but Tom Brislin puts in a worthy performance despite being mixed down to almost inaudible levels at times. Adding an orchestra to fill out the sound must have been a risky decision but it definitely works here, providing a well-balanced background accompaniment without encroaching on the overall Yes feel.

If you don't have a Yes DVD in your collection, this is a good one to get. Most of the classic tracks are here, performed close to perfection by the leads. Jon's voice is on top form, Steve's guitar work is awesome as ever and Chris's trousers have never been tighter. His bass during the climax of Starship Trooper can never be fully replicated on a home system, you really do have to be there, but he still manages to hit a few emotional chords for any true Yes fan.

As for production, the seemingly obligatory animations can be dispensed with (and are by default), leaving you free to enjoy the music without distraction as intended. Camera work is good, respectful of the band members, sound quality excellent, picture encoding almost flawless. The additional material is just padding, see it once and forget it.

This DVD will tide me over until next year when Yes tour again, this time with Rick back where he belongs. If you are a Yes fan I suggest you give this DVD a home. I promise you will not be disappointed.

The occasion, as most reading this will know, is the 2001 Yes Symphonic Tour - in this case a concert in Amsterdam. The fact that the shoot took place in Europe adds to the enjoyment, as audiences in this part of the hemisphere tend actually to listen to music rather than to yell and scream while it is happening. This removes most irritating aural distractions from the listener's perspective, and avoids elimination problems at the production end.

The idea of Yes appearing with an orchestra was greeted with understandable scepticism in some quarters. The possibilities of overkill, mismatch or descent into musak were enough to make anyone who cares about their music nervous. Fortunately, composer Larry Groupe handles arrangements of classic material with taste and restraint, and the young European Festival Orchestra under Wilhelm Kietel was well settled in by the time this was filmed. Indeed they seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. It is good to be able to hear what they add. This was not always possible as a member of the audience.

The highlights of the concert are undoubtedly superb versions of three 20-minute Yes epics: 'Close To The Edge', 'Gates of Delirium' (from 'Relayer') and 'Ritual' (from 'Tales From Topographic Oceans'). The playing and the mix are top notch here. What's more, director Aubrey Powell understands the need to ensure that visual and musical events are in synch. Obvious maybe, but not evident on past Yes video outings. Those who dismiss Yes as sound and fury signifying little might not be entirely assuaged by these performances, but is difficult for some of us not to be moved by the grandeur, ambition and architecture of their sound - even if we may have moved beyond the moment in time that was progressive rock in other ways.

'And You And I', 'Long Distance Runaround' (with a rather incongruous cinematic orchestral prelude) and 'Starship Trooper' also come off well, even if they emphasise the fact that bassist Chris Squire's dress sense is as laughably misguided as ever. Steve Howe provides a good acoustic guitar interlude with the Spanish strains of 'Mood For A Day' and his arrangement of the second movement of Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D major. The latter makes me slightly anxious, as it doesn't really do justice to the original. But it has a few interesting harmonic quirks to enliven interest. The new material (from the 'Magnification', album, 2001) is mixed in its live realisation. The longish 'In The Presence Of' works well, especially the driving coda. Only the cloying opening theme lets it down. 'Don't Go' is a frivolous add-on, frankly. The title track sounds pretty good here, but it lost its accents and embellishments in the actual concerts. The ability to mix the orchestra better on this DVD/video production helps enormously.

At the end, Yes throw in a surprise 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart' (without orchestra) as well as the ubiquitous 'All Good People' and 'Roundabout', on which the orchestra re-appear to jive engagingly in the background. Steve Howe is clearly none-too-keen on his role in the Trevor Rabin-era material, and who can blame him? For the most part he strums, allowing keyboards sideman Tom Brislin - who plays wonderfully throughout - to adapt the mid-song solo through some judicious synth pitch bending. Howe returns at the end to add something much more guitaritic, but in his own style.

This video features the entire concert, Jon Anderson's amusingly off-kilter between-song patter included. There are visual augmentations available on the DVD, but thankfully the have not been included in this version - except at the very beginning, where the European Festival Orchestra plays the opening overture to Cesca graphics before the fade in to 'Close To The Edge'. That apart you can put your feet up and focus on the playing of all concerned. And with a set list like this, who wouldn't want to?

One final, pedantic point. Though the word symphonic is used carelessly as a synonym for everything involving a larger-than-chamber orchestra these days, this is in fact 'Yes orchestral'. There have been laboured attempts to find sonata form in their longer works. But everyone knows that they were not written with that intent, and the symphonic moniker misses the point. Yes at their best (on the three classic albums from which over an hour of this superb film is taken) are powerful and inventive in their own right. They do not need misplaced attributions from other genres to make the credible. Yes may look aged, but their sound has continuing vitality. Check it out.