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Yes: Live At Glastonbury Festival 2003

We’re hardly short of live material from any classic band these days and British prog legends Yes more than most have had their stage-work revealed for all to hear on any number of formats over the years. Hence, it takes something truly special from this band’s touring past to land in your lap to grab the attention. At first glance, Live At Glastonbury Festival 2003 immediately ticks a lot of the right boxes - classic line-up (Anderson, Howe, Wakeman, Squire, White, obviously) - previously unavailable on CD - festival setting, so not a standard set - bonus material.

You do however, wonder just exactly what a modern day Glasto audience more used to middle of the road indie and chart rock/pop and classic heritage acts going through the motions made of a proper prog behemoth in full flow. Certainly at the beginning of Yes’s set there seems more muted confusion in the audience than there does ecstatic enthusiasm and Jon Anderson’s mystical stage raps also seem to cause much silent shoulder shrugging from the booze (and otherwise) enhanced throng. Thankfully, on stage things much more readily click into gear, the unstoppable rhythm juggernaut of Squire and White adding the gravitas that the likes of “South Side Of The Sky” requires to truly hit home, as the Fragile album is plundered for four of its cuts. Wakeman on the other hand has a less straight forward period settling in, with his usually impeccable performance somewhat haphazard in places during opener “Siberian Khatru” but by the time the then ‘new’ track “Magnification”, from the underrated album of the same name is underway, his stride is full and purposeful and really from there the band never look back.

What maybe does mark this performance out as being slightly different is that with Yes not being amongst the festival’s headline acts, the set-list is somewhat truncated and as such none of the five-some get the opportunity to stretch out in a solo setting, with the likes of “Clap” unusually absent. Pure devotees of the band may well decry this occurrence, but as an audio experience in the home I have to say that I found not having to sit through the more self aggrandising moments on every spin of this double disc set to be quite enjoyable. Closing with “I’ve Seen All Good People” and, of course, “Roundabout” on what is a pleasingly honest sounding set with, I'd guess, few post-embellishments, Yes undoubtedly do end by wowing the crowd. Even if a daylight 3.30pm stage time must have been somewhat unusual for them.

Now, if all that sounds familiar, that will be because the recently reissued The New Director’s Cut DVD also contains this set in its entirety, but, as you’d no doubt expect, along with the visuals from the day. And with the four bonus cuts, which are interesting (semi) acoustic reworking of “Long Distance Runaround”, “Show Me”, “Time Is Time” and “Tiger Rag” all directly lifted from the Yes - Acoustic DVD, while this release can rightly be claimed to be a ‘first time on CD’ event, none of this material is new, or exclusive.

That said, Yes live in any of their guises is a formidable beast and there’s no getting away from the fact that for most of the band’s fans it’s this quintet that they truly view as quintessential Yes. Listening to Live At Glastonbury Festival 2003 it’s easy to hear why.


Track Listing
CD1
1. Siberian Khatru
2. Magnification
3. Don’t Kill The Whale
4. We Have Heaven
5. South Side Of The Sky
6. And You And I
7. Heart Of The Sunrise


CD2
1. Awaken
2. I’ve Seen All Good People
3. Roundabout
4. Long Distance Runaround (bonus track)
5. Show Me  (bonus track)
6. Time Is Time  (bonus track)
7. Tiger Rag  (bonus track)

Added: October 7th 2019
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Live At Glastonbury 2003 @ The Store For Music
Hits: 3604
Language: english

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