Top 10 Favorite Yes Live Music Videos on YouTube

1. Yours Is No Disgrace

Here’s a clip from a 1972 BBC TV special about the group at the time of “Fragile”. This was their fourth album, but their first album featuring both guitarist Steve Howe and keyboardist Rick Wakeman, and arguably their golden era. This video shows Yes in the early part of their strongest period, creatively and commercially.

2. Yes at Queens Park – And You And I

This video is from 1975 at Queen’s Park, at the time of the “Relayer” album. Here Yes performs the epic “And You and I” from their classic “Close to the Edge”. Note the quintessential prog rock Roger Dean set.

3. Steve Howe – The Clap

Here’s a clip from the same 1975 concert above, with Steve Howe performing his signature solo acoustic guitar piece “The Clap. Equally enjoyable to the music is the way he bounces around!

4. Parallels

Here’s the band in 1977 promoting their album “Going For the One”, and this song is “Parallels”. This clip shows the opening of the concert, so you can hear the clip of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite which opened every one of their concerts (and still does to this day). This is from a somewhat low-quality bootleg, but it’s a unique document of a band at this period which is considered by many fans to be the height of their live performances and a period of “good energy” amongst the band members, as well as their commercial peak.

5. Into the Lens

This is a lip-synched promotional video, not a proper live clip; but it does give a sense of the band around the time of their 1980 album “Drama”, the only album not featuring vocalist Jon Anderson (but Trevor Horn in his place). This is song “Tempus Fugit”.

6. It Can Happen

This is also not a live video, and is fact a very strange music video, but I thought I should include something representing Yes ’80s period featuring guitarist/vocalist Trevor Rabin. There is a great deal of controversy among the fanbase about whether this period was, well, good. This video is of the single “It Can Happen”. This video is interesting to watch if only to see the band’s bizarre androgynous ’80s outfits, especially Chris Squire’s inexplicable fishnet shirt and eyeliner.

7. Roundabout

Moving forward in time, here’s a song from the 1991 Union tour, which brought together a huge band of members from all the various Yes line-ups (two drummers, two guitarists, two keyboardists, etc). The concert took place on a giant rotating stage. This was done in admittedly questionable taste. This video shows their hit single “Roundabout”.

8. Siberian Khatru

Here’s a video from Yes’s 1996 “Keys To Ascension” tour (on which the band seemed committed to doing their hair very badly). This clip is of their classic “Siberian Khatru” from “Close to the Edge”.

9. & 10. And You And I; parts 1 & 2

Here is a bootleg from the band’s most recent 35^th anniversary tour in 2004. This is from the Madison Square Garden concert, which was considered to be exceptional. This is a performance of “And You and I” which received an extended standing ovation before they could finish the song, and actually caused the concert to go overtime (supposedly costing them a great deal of money from having to overpay the venue staff!).

Well, there it is. I hope you enjoyed this low-resolution but nevertheless enjoyable tour through the lengthy live history of Yes, arguably the greatest progressive rock group of all time!

Reference:

• yesworld.com