The Fish 1971/1972 Version

[seyesbass]

Over here in Britain in Autumn 1971 Yes did a couple of "mini tours" in between recording and they played the songs from the forthcoming Fragile album.
I have a recording my brother and I did from October 1971 of what was Rick Wakemans first Manchester appearance with Yes and the band featured songs from the soon to be completed Fragile album at that show. Some songs like Long Distance Runaround didnt have their final album name and in the faint recording in between songs Jon introduced it as something that sounded like "colour of the sun". They had already played Heart of the Sunrise so maybe there was some mix up in the set order or something but it definitely wasnt called Long distance Runaround.
Chris introduced the section of the song that he featured on after Jon handed him the job of describing that to us before they launched into it. I remember Chris getting some stick from the audience when he said he wouldnt be able to reproduce what they had recorded. He said "You havent got two pairs of hands have you?" and went on to explain that the rest of the band would help on that part and finished by explaining the singing at the end of the song Schindleria Praematurus.
I have always liked the early versions of The Fish and the October 1971 recording is more like the album format with a shorter bass solo spot than a few months later. My favourite version is the one on Yessongs though. Its manic in parts and melodic in others but in all it epitomises how far out on a limb Chris went with the bass guitar in those days.
A month or two back our keyboard player Chris Bradshaw heard me playing bits of the Yessongs version of The Fish messing around with a wah wah at rehearsal and suggested that we do that instead of the medley of bass themes we had been doing up until then.
Any way we gave it a go and it seems to be going down ok so far.
Heres a few chunks of an audience recording from June 2008 at the Robin2 Wolverhampton of the second time we played the 1971/2 version of The Fish.


file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Pete%20Talk21/My%20Documents/Long%20Dist%20intro.mp3

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Pete%20Talk21/My%20Documents/Fish%20Robin%202%20June%202008.mp3

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Pete%20Talk21/My%20Documents/Fish%201%20Audio-03.mp3

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Pete%20Talk21/My%20Documents/Fish%201%20Audio-04.mp3

Just copy and paste the links into your address bar and the clips should play.
They are; Long Distance intro,the first part of The Fish, the lead up to vocals and the ending.
The reason for the edits is because theres some audience noise and background chatter etc. on the other bits that I chopped out.
As with CTTE its bloody loud and its not a pro audio equipment recording so dont expect studio quality!

[ajish4]

Great post Pete, but there is something wrong with the links....

I too live the YESSONGS version best.

Looking forward to hearing these!

[ram]

Yes, link not working here either... usually you need some kind of site to point too and then the file names...?

[seyesbass]

Sorry guys.
I will try again!
They are Quicktime clips if anyone knows how to transfer them onto the forum.

[jps]

Those "links" look like just file locations on your hard drive.

[seyesbass]

Yes and even I have trouble getting into that!
I will try Myspace I think.....
Just while we are wondering about those clips,I listened again and they were really muffled so its just as well they didnt load.
I have the slightly unmuffled but obviously very loud bootleg sounding clips now.
I will ask someone twenty five years younger than me about how to work a PC!

[seyesbass]

Right,
Go on youtube and type in "SEYES the fish".

They are short clips and really compressed.
My daughter has a load of video stuff all chopped up that she wants to edit together into one of her projects.

I make no aplogies for the coat..I used to be in an 8 piece Soul Band and we all looked like that!