Yes – Live At The Rainbow London, England 12/16/1972

my copy is totally clean and plays fantastic right out of the sleeve, which is surprising for anything from any GZ facility. the discs all have a very slight warp, but nothing that even remotely affects the play. im guessing this is something that happend in transit and probably not from careless manufacture.

the sound is fantastic, in my opinion. this sounds like a clean soundboard of Yes from the early 70s, and it rocks hard. sound is comparable to the original Yessongs 3LP, and i always liked the "as it happened and in your face" quality of that one. the only thing that i could get nit-picky about is the lack of depth in the original recording. but it seems that every professionally recorded Yes concert from this era has that quality to it. i would chalk it up to Chris Squire's actual bass sound as he always played with a midrange heavy sound to feature his "lead bass" technique/style, and that would automatically take some ass-end out of the overall sound. that, and whatever Eddie Offord had to do in the live mix to compensate for the actual room sound will affect how it went to tape. a good sound engineer will mix only for the room, and not even consider how it may go to tape, as the room sound is critical. the recorded results are not. actual recorded results are the job of remote engineers who are actually there to get a good recording. and Eddie Offord was one of the best.

some might complain about the occasional tape glitch/drop out, but im a "warts and all" kind of guy. these are 50+ year old source tapes that im sure were not stored in ideal conditions. its a miracle that they survived as well as they did, and im glad to finally hear a great sounding complete recording of this show, without some modern day engineer attempting to "fix" anything that they perceived as "wrong" with what they had to work with.

i love it, and i hope theres more lurking in the vaults; specifically Rotterdam and Frankfurt from 1977. "Yesshows" may be an amazing document, but the frustration of knowing those 2 shows from the GFTO tour were professionally recorded and have been languishing in a closet or a basement somewhere is maddening. at least most of the Cobo Hall show from 76 has been released in some form, but i would love to get a complete version of that as well!!

Is BG in the dead wax???????????????????????? words words words words

4 stars because of the price and audio drop off. Heart of the Sunrise is my absolute favorite song and can’t get enough of the different recordings so it’s a no brainer for me to pick this up. However the Wakeman solo for me was a real treat! I have a poor quality audience recording of a different show with the jingle bells medley so it was a nice surprise on this higher quality recording. If I’m dropping $70 on a three disc I’d like a trifold too. Maybe not a release for everyone but a must for the hardcore fans

Bon. Si ce n’est pas sorti il y a 50 ans c’est qu’il devait y avoir de bonnes raisons.
Ce qui est inissible : la pochette et l’absence de notes de pochette.
Le son : pour une archive, c’est très bon. Oui il y a des trous d’air. Oui le clavier de Wakeman se balade. Oui cela sature parfois. Mais quelle énergie.
Rien que pour les versions de Close To The Edge et Roundabout. Un incontournable.

Anyone else get one with stitching throughout the entirety of side 2?

Is this all on 45 rpm? Thought the longest time fit on one side on 45 rpm is 16 minutes?

When I saw "Mastered by Bernie Grundman", I said to myself WOW! But there are a some audio drop outs, sometimes the guitar of Steve Howe is very far in the background, sometimes very prominent, the balance is varying as well. Either Bernie was lazy... or there was just too many things to correct and it was impossible to do better. Only for YES hardcore fans, I would. But since I am, I still apreciate the performance, and you will never hear elsewhere Close to the Edge played so fast! which is a real treat.

I was bummed about a lot of audio drop outs. Definitely not many shining moments of performances. But still a good collectible to have.

No sonic masterpiece here but a great capture of a very creative period for the band. Not a “go to” YES album for me but a nice vintage performance with my favorite YES lineup. Sound 6-10 Packaging 3-10

Sounds great but it’s unacceptable for a 3LP release to come in a single jacket