The Fish 1971/1972 Version
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 4:20 pm
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!
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!