Added: 5 years ago
From: yesmuseum
Views: 65,111
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (109)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • Absolutely wonderful

  • Yes, A Celebration 1969-1979 2DVD set available at Tommygun Video please see our Youtube channel for link to wbsite/clips/more info - also features live at QPR 1975

  • yes' best lineup by far.

  • The product of a very special combination of ingredients in time: first - incredible talents, who found each other at the end of the English art school experiments: back when there was funding, and people had the time to listen to music like this.

  • I'd give so much to be able to go back in time and watch a live performance when they were young and you could actually get tickets and go see them! Well you can now, but they're winding down, being in the closing of their lives.  :(

  • yes music is( not at all) based on rythmic elements

    so bruford or white it doesn t matter! this is why bruford leave the band in 72...

  • :-o

  • @tiredhead false! Bruford left Yes to join King Crimson, which had just as many tempo changes if not more. Bruford is an extremely skilled drummer, arguably the best prog rock drummer.

  • @JoshMan4492 Bravo

  • @JoshMan4492 study up on your hero. he admitted it himself.

  • @tiredhead

    What a silly boy.

  • Bill Bruford for president

  • It is a Portuguese guitar. Mandolins are smaller.

  • whats that instrument the guitar player is playing at 1:35?

  • Looks and sounds like a mandolin to me.

  • It's a Portugese 12-string.

  • I always prefered Brufords dum style 'cause it's so distinctive - although one of my fav songs is Lennon's Instant Karma featuring Alan White on drums.

  • Frodo has been quoted as saying "Yes is my favorite band of all time."

  • I find Bruford's style more interesting that White's.

  • yea, i misspelled which. that rum, vodka thing .

  • This Bruford X White argument is senseless, both great . It's like arguing witch is better rum or vodka .

    Bruford was made for Crimson though !

  • whats the drummers name again?

  • Bill Bruford

  • nice one thanks for info

  • Anderson uses his vocals as another instrument, providing texture and emotion to the composition. His lyrics are definatly original and imaginative, if meaningless.

  • bruford's ideas .... very similar to robert fripp's.

  • Amazing band.... complex arrangements and, as you can see/hear.. they pulled this stuff off "note for note" live! Brilliant.. thanks to all members of all versions of YES!

  • great memories, saw them ,,live.. at the Ahoy centre Rotterdam the netherlands  1974,with the ,,Roger Dean,, stage, and later in 1978, Yes,, and with Rick.

  • lol @ 5:10... remember in the uk record with the unbroken john wetton drone that literally goes for a couple of minutes, bill? can't you taste the savory irony???

  • thank god for this video! not only cos it's rare bruford yes footage, but especially because jon settles the score here. He writes lyrics "more for the sound of the words." done :)

  • One could argue that "everything happens for a reason" and the particular words "came to him for a reason"... making it all the more compelling in some ways....

  • yes... but the responsibility for the lyrical work, in your case phil, is no longer on jon's shoulders.

  • I think he is making reference to word CHOICE. This does not mean that the overall lyrical landscape of a YES song does not have meaning and is not intended to have meaning. This dangerously dangles into the idea that says lyrics in progressive rock songs are meaningless. I tend to stay away from such dangerous thinking. In fact I believe that lyrics and music are of equal importance in a progressive rock song.

  • lol, you're gonna read too far into his NON-LYRICAL words too? He makes it pretty clear what he's talking about.

    What does this mean to you? "I think I work a bit backwards, because I write a tune, and then I write the lyrics, not so much for the idea behind the lyrics but for the sound of the words. After you've written a song, and put it together, and recorded it, I start to look at the thing as a whole, and realize 'there is a meaning to it...'" etc.

  • Well you are certainly set in your ways and far be it for me to try and persuade you otherwise, and I must tell you your dismissive tone was an added little treat. Once again let me restate that I think he is referring to word choice. Certainly when you are dealing with songs like Relayer which is based on Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, and Close to the Edge based on Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, there is certainly meaning in the overall lyrical landscape.

  • ......And I was merely stating that it is better to stay clear of such thinking that renders lyrics in Progressive Rock songs as useless and meaningless. Try telling Ian Anderson, Peter Gabriel, and Peter Hammill that their lyrics mean nothing. I think it's a misconception. The whole idea of prog rock is to present a conglomerate, a cosmopolitan of ALL art, not just music. A totality of poetry, literature, the visual arts and of course music. That is the cogitation behind prog rock.

  • i do believe bruford left because of the vigorus schedule Yes followed while recording CTTE.

  • I don't know if he left because of the schedule... he has said he left because YES was becomming his own preson cell where he had no other choice but repeating himself, in other words YES was to commercial and easy. If you take a look at what he did with YES and then with Crimson you'll see he was right. However, YES music was amazing until 1996 where their creativity died for good.

  • YES!

  • Damn, I was only 12 in 1972. It's amazing how Yes has become such a part of my life. I could not imagine being without them.

  • I saw yes in 2005 for the first time after listening to them for 33 years! jon Anderson was 60 years old. Ive seen a lot of the "older" rockers and many of them are shells of what they used to be. Not Yes. Yes put on an absolutely incredible show. Anderson sounded like he did in the early

    70's, Howe was f***ing amazing, Chris squire, RW, both great. Even Alan White was good, though it was a huge step off in talent for yes to replace bruford with White.

  • Alan White was a damn good drummer. more solid than Bruford and funkier. listen to Relayer, sound chaser, how can you say that is a huge drop off in talent from Bruford?

  • You kidding man? Are you a drummer? Doubt it from that comment. Check out "Roundabout" studio version from Fragile; then compare that to Alan White's live version. Ive seen a million drummers, (though not Bruford, too bad for me), and I can tell you that Alan White is very middle of the pack, average for the drummers Ive seen. Bruford was a technically top notch drummer; light years ahead of White.

  • I first came to know Yes' material through yessongs. when I subsequently heard the studio recordings I found Bruford's drumming to be very rigid and seemed to "lag" at times. Yes accomplished their most complicated work with White and it's in no small part due to his playing ability. Bruford may be a technically better drummer but I think White was better for the band and his kit sounded better imo. Yes I do play the drums.

  • Well, then there are two possibilities: Either White was good enough for the members of Yes to recruit him as aggressively as they did, or the guys in Yes have horrible judgment in picking members.

    Ironically, Alan experimented with electronic percussion 7 or 8 years before Bruford, Mr. Electronic drums, so he was ahead of that curve. (For that matter, so did Carl Palmer.)

  • Fact is that Yes made their name with Bruford behind the drum kit. I agree with one poster that they are definitely different styles. But still Bruford was technically a much better drummer, with a distinctive style. White was more mainstream, with a very ubiquitous drumming style; still good enough obviously to play for Yes, but still a dime a dozen.

  • PART 1: Bruford wasn't that distinctive, when you think hard and critically about it. He was a young jazz player in a rock group, & played a hell of a lot of notes & off-beat things, which made it sound like he had more "technique" than he really had; being young, he also hadn't learned yet what works & what doesn't. White was a young but seasoned session drummer with great time and an obvious (if you pay attention which most Bruford devotees don't) composer/arranger's sensibilities.

  • Part 2: the first place so they get a generic replacement. Look at the Who with Keith Moon, who was one of best drummers of his era, and was replaced after his death by Kenny Jones, who quite frankly I think I play better than. What happened to the Who? They still had success but the sound of that band changed dramatically. Same with Yes who remain famous but mostly for their early work with Bruford, unless you consider drivel like "Owner of a Lonely Heart" to be a classic Yes song.

  • Dismissing White as "generic" absolutely proves that you're not paying attention; you're turning a blind eye both to White's playing and his writing contributions, and every bit of music they put out since Bruford left, which many, MANY yes fans consider their favorite (as evidenced by a lot of commentary on this web site).

    "Owner" has nothing to do with this discussion at all. We're talking about two drummers' styles and validity.

    We'll have to agree to disagree, I guess. It's all opinion.

  • PART 2: Bruford left, out of his sense of boredom & his admitted inability to enjoy being in a band that he wasn't leading. He was with Yes for only 4 years, roughly, & for 5 albums. White has been Yes' drummer for 36 years, & how many albums?

    Bottom line is that I love BOTH their playing and BOTH their styles, & I only wish people could enjoy ALL the incarnations of Yes, because they all have had great things to offer, instead of all this "he sucks/he's a god" stuff I see here all the time.

  • I. I dont do the "her sucks" stuff as you call it. But I can tell you that Bruford was very distinctive. Not my opinion only, but the opinion of millions of drummers. It doesnt really matter how long White has been the drummer. White is a basic 4/4 drummer, while Bruford was trechnically perfect, playing difficult early Yes arrangements in odd time signatures with ease and flair. Sometimes non drummer band mates dont have the appreciation for the talent that drove the band tt its success

  • White a basic 4/4 drummer? What about all the stuff he did and still does in 5/8 (Sound Chaser, for example) 6/8 (too many to list), 7/8, 9/8, 11/8 ... it goes on and on. I'm absolutely convinced that you just haven't given him a fair listen out of an inability to see beyond Bruford.

  • While of course it's all opinion - The main difference between the 2 drummers is one of them has achieved legendary status while the other is just a very good drummer.

    The fragile/ctte lineup is the "classic" lineup when the band was at it's creative peak. Much like a great many other bands once a prominent member of that lineup leaves it still may be good/great but it will never be AS good.

    Bruford is a giant. Period.

  • I agree totally with you. It is not against Alan, but I think that it is the most talented line up.

  • Brufford and White cannot be compared, they are both totally different KINDS of drummers. Brufford is jazz, White is more rock. Both are GREAT!

  • I couldn't agree more. Bruford makes such a difference in their sound. What a loss. Wish he could bury the hatchet with Chris Squire. Chris should make more of an effort since it was his fault mostly why Bruford left.

  • Never knew that was why Bruford left. What happened between him and Squire?

  • He said Chris Squire kept him waiting for really long periods of time while he tuned up. And that " that is the the ultimate disrespect for a fellow muscician".. in his words. If you watch the Union Tour/ Heart of the Sunrise, Chris intentionally makes an exagerated pause while lookig at Bruford as if to say, "Gotcha again!" I don't get it, I just wish they'd get him back in the band once more before it's too late.

  • IDK about the tuning problem. But, listen to Starship Trooper on TYA (BB), then Starship Trooper on Yessongs (AW). Two different songs. And Perpetual Change on Yessongs? Amazing. Bruford just gets it.

  • I agree. I cringed whe I herd yessongs, he ruins the tempo on rounabout too. But in all fairness later on, AW did a prety good job on Going for the One,on the Union Tour AW is constantly looking over as BB and I think he learned a thing or two. AW improved but will never be a BB.

  • Bill Bruford is intellegent. But I ask "why NOT use a tape loop of your OWN music in a composition?" Mission of Burma is famous for it-both "spontaneous" and "prepared".

  • Here they sounded like a real group, not like hired musicians

  • This is interesting to watch. It shows Yes at both their commercial peak and playing peak as a band. One long trip (smile)!

  • John Anderson would've made a great Frodo

  • Wow...thanks so much for making this available! I didn't even know it existed!

  • YES __ this video scheduled for __ RockVideo.TV___

  • My cat looks up to you Bill!!

  • Listening to Bruford makes me feel like I'm attending a musical lecture at Harvard.

    I like his technicality.

  • The Funniest thing to know is that Bill tought to came back at university (but he doesn't making that) and the first drummer who yes calls is.........Phil Collins. But Genesis Call him to but the audition to Genesis and Yes was at the same day, same moment, Phil goes to Yes but when he arrives at Yes's Studio he change idea and goes to Genesis

  • Do you understand yourself?

  • retard

  • Jon kinda reminds of Sean Penn in "Fast Times...".

    I'm waiting for him to pound a sneaker into his head and saying "I'm sssoooo wasted!"

  • OMG! LOL!  That was hysterical!!!

  • What do you think of Jon's statement about "We as a group... and me as the songwriter"? It raised my eyebrow.

  • He says "Me as A songwriter".

  • I am not sure he says 'a' instead of 'the'. Anyway, the fact is that Jon iuxtaposes 'we as a group' and 'me as a/the songwriter' who 'are finding out about each other'. As if musicianship is another entity than the songwriting entity that is supposedly Jon. But the Yes repertoire up to 1972 shows that *all* bandmembers wrote the songs. Jon wrote lyrics rather than songs. To separate the 'songwriter' from 'the group' misses the hit (the GREAT interplay that is Yes). An act of sheer Napoleonism.

  • Soooo nice!

  • My goodness... Steve and Chris actually *jamming* together in Perpetual Change? Shocking.

    In all seriousness this was Yes at the height of their powers and everything before or since is a lesser (though still pretty amazing) version.

  • steve howe is god, jon anderson is flawless, squires is damn good, wakeman is incredible, and bruford is insane

  • Interesting video clip. Thanks.

  • I'm guessing Yessongs was recorded very soon after this was made.

  • Jon voice is incredible, his singing is just natural, no sign of strain on whatever the pitch is

  • Me 3!!!

  • Cool vid. Thanks for uping.

  • I miss Bruford

  • ME, too.

  • Thanks for the vintage footage.

  • I am always interested in the old films of Yes. This is great. Thanks!

  • Chris "Squires"? Like there's more than one.

  • when howe and squire interact in perpetual it's mind blowing steve howe is so differen't now

  • this yes is really thee yes band it's immaculate

  • they never sounded better than at this time, coming up with Bruford, who is clearly the most serious musician of the bunch

  • Oh, geez, I'm misty-eyed. I lived in New York back then and went with my college buddies to see every one of their concerts (and ELP, King Crimson and Pink Floyd among others). We practically lived in Madison Square Garden. Never took videos, but I still have some great slides. That's another thing I miss. No one got bent out of shape in those days if you brought your camera.

  • as one the many ones

    wheel seed perpetual

  • unity in diversity

  • Yes at their finest...gotta love it !. It was back when the boys still had their "original" hair color too. ;)

  • MY GOD! They sounded friggin' fantastic live! Incredible performaces! I'm enjoying the interview segments, but I wish I could hear the songs without interuption. So much better than "Yessongs" when they were trying to break in Alan White on the fly.

  • I cam remember Yes being on Granada's Magpie what must have been around 1970. I wonder if there is any footage of that?

  • Over the years, Jon seems to have blended his native Accrington accent with the American accent, which now sounds very strange. It almosts sounds like he's putting it on, but it's too consistent for that. It must be from years of living in the U.S.

  • that's cause for some reason, most yanks can't understand accents - despite the fact that everybody else goes to the trouble to make an effort!!

  • I wish I'd seen this 30 years ago when I was a fanatic. I still remember the dream there...still the best band I've ever heard (the last days with Bruford) I haven't heard such beautiful improvisational rock(live w/Bruford on Yessongs) since.....sad to say.

  • Did JON`s Accent Change?

  • Oh yes you can hear that broad "Lancastrian accent" on this..

  • Thank you SOOOO much, yesmuseum, but posting this series!!!!

  • nice to hear Jon's original accent!

  • cool :)

  • I've always wanted to see this show. Thanks so much!!!

Loading...
Alert icon
0 / 00Unsaved Playlist Return to active list
    1. Your queue is empty. Add videos to your queue using this button:
      or sign in to load a different list.
    Loading...Loading...Saving...
    • Clear all videos from this list
    • Learn more