Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Maybe Wakeman won't play anything from Relayer, but former Yes keyboardist Igor Khoroshev did. I saw them around the time of the Ladder tour and they did Gates of Delirium. I about melted outta my seat having not seen it live since 1975.

Gates of Delirium (in fact all of Relayer) is a great piece of music! Glad to see so many others appreciating it. I remember seeing Yes here in the Zoo do Relayer live and when they did Soon, when Jon sang the "Soon, oh soon, the light" part, he had a green laser making a cone of light from above over him (he was in all white) and it was a fantastic effect! I might have pics or slides of it squirreled away somewhere - I got to take pictures of all the times I saw Yes - that was back when you could.

Congrats Pete, on getting to play Gates live!!

I just watched Gates on Google video from the 1976 QPR concert. The only tour I missed since TFTO. I also liked Igor, not just for his own parts, which were good, but he played Rick and Tony's parts like they were right off the albums, and you could tell he really respected them as well. Sorry he is not around anymore, maybe he'll surface again next time Rick leaves.

Relayer is my favorite YES album. I also really like TFTO a lot. I know these aren't the "typical" (even though typical really isn't an accurate description, buy you know what I'm getting at) style YES songs, but to this day, I'm amazed at what those guys were able to do.

After going back and watching the video again, I appreciate it even more.

I still get a charge when I introduce a young player to these guys. I love watching their faces when they see Howe for the first time tear through a song, too cool.

There's something about "Ritual" from Tales that is just . . . wow. I wish they would release more live versions of that piece, but I can't imagine they've played it too many times.

Bob,the version of Ritual on the QPR show is really good and despite some poor audio on the earlier section of the show the mix on Ritual is great.There are good close ups of Chris doing the bass solo section too. Ritual was the set closer on the 75/76 tours so it had a good airing!

I've seen them do all 4 movements of TFTO live - back in the 70s. Ritual is my second favorite, kinda tied with Revealing Science of God, but Nous Sommes Du Soleil is my favoritest movement. The ending is just so damn powerful, and fades into the sunrise so relevently, in waves, like, well, you know.

I wore the vinyl down pretty good on TFTO, and the cd was getting necessary.

Sorry for the language abuses...

I attended the kick-*** 'Masterworks' tour in Chicago, outdoors on the lakefront park. I always enjoy the slightly different vibe and energy of outdoor shows (and this was a free show, for better or worse, audience-wise)... it was pretty intense to finally witness "Gates" live, but what made the concert for me was the middle section of "Ritual": a bizarre cloud formation rapidly moved over the stage area on this otherwise clear summer day, and some ominous rolls of thunder were captured as a dramatic sonic backdrop during Squire's bass solo... then the billowing clouds disappeared as quickly as they came, almost as if on cue-- an uncontrolled yet perfectly timed Yes moment that really brought to my mind the whole power-of-nature/Roger Dean aspect of the band-- one of those magical real-time contexts that gives the music a timeless connection more intense than listening to the CD at home in an easy chair ("dreamer easy in the chair that really fits you"). The heavy drumming section of the song was great to witness live..the whole band took to kettle drums, etc., it was very earthy and tribal-- the studio version again doesn't seem to really capture the intensity of this. Another wonderful outdoorsy addition to the show was during the 'nature' intro to "Close to the Edge"-- a bunch of little birds seemed to be attracted to that particular music and perched on top of the lighting rig and twittered away, adding exactly what was once artifically dubbed on in the studio version-- only to fly off when the band hit those hard intro chords. ) You just don't get quite this same kind of sublime magic in an auditorium.

Sensurround....

Sounds like a great show Jo.

Robert Schuster wrote: "Rick is kind of a jerk about it . . . apparently he really dislikes Geoff Downes, whom I think is an amazing keyboardist"

I think he may have mellowed a bit on this over the years. In fact on the Yesyears DVD he withdraws a disparaging remark he had previously made about Drama. As I'm typing this, Rick is talking with John Wetton & Geoff Downes on his radio show.

Geoff makes a great contribution to Drama in my opinion.

Oooh, really? That's good to know that he's not nearly so bitter about it these days. Maybe he'll do a cool interpretation of "Machine Messiah" one of these days?

I agree that Geoff Downes is amazing on "Drama". I love his keyboard playing, and I think it fits perfectly in the music of the album.