Yes Symphonic

[Scottmoose]

Ah. Now that's more like it. Any Yes fans out there? Thought so. And this is a good one. Jon, Chris, Alan and Steve on top form. Sadly no Rick Wakeman -a real pity as for me, like many, he's easily the greatest keyboardist of all time. Still, Tom Brislin is OK on his own four keyboards (Jon helps out on a few tracks with two of his own) -not quite to Rick's now standard 11 then, and he's more in the Keith Emmerson mould -all power, no finesse; but there's a whole orchestra to take that role on anyway. Ah, the orchestra. A whole one. Did I forget to mention that?
It's the tour of Magnification, essentially, and it's great fun. There's some classic, and some new, and the sound's first rate in DTS. Even the DD is OK, and the DD stereo is good too. It's well filmed, everybody was obviously having fun, and it should be bought. (With one proviso: if you're a fan of Rick Wakeman, like me, skip the Starship Trooper track. He's made it so much his own now that without his monster keyboard solo's, it feels a bit flat compared to, say, Keys to Ascension or his own Live in Buenos Aires DVD. If you're not -well, I don't believe it, but discard this bit)
Great stuff -More please!
Scott

 

[ssully]

Ah. Now that's more like it. Any Yes fans out there? Thought so. And this is a good one.

Just to be clear, Scott is referring to the concert DVD from 2002, not the awful 'Symphonic Music of Yes' CD that came out in the early 90's.

Jon, Chris, Alan and Steve on top form. Sadly no Rick Wakeman -a real pity as for me, like many, he's easily the greatest keyboardist of all time. Still, Tom Brislin is OK on his own four keyboards (Jon helps out on a few tracks with two of his own) -not quite to Rick's now standard 11 then, and he's more in the Keith Emmerson mould -all power, no finesse; but there's a whole orchestra to take that role on anyway.

I'd dispute the 'all power no finesse' charge, since Brislin is mixed so damn low that you can't hear him clearly most of the time anyway. He certainly seems to have done Patrick Moraz' parts more justice than Wakeman ever did. And it doesn't matter how many keyboards he has...nowadays Wakeman doesn't really *need* 11 of them, its at least partly for show.

Ah, the orchestra. A whole one. Did I forget to mention that?
It's the tour of Magnification, essentially, and it's great fun. There's some classic, and some new, and the sound's first rate in DTS. Even the DD is OK, and the DD stereo is good too.

I'd have liked a bit less reverb on the whole mix, but other than that, and the injustice done to Brislin in the mix, I have no complaints.