#Yes #Jon Anderson #Steve Howe #Bill Bruford #Chris Squire #progressive rock #art rock #symphonic prog #hard rock #heavy prog #German TV #Beat-Club #1970s
Nowadays, the progressive rock band Yes doesn't need an introduction, but at the end of the sixties, when this great band made their first TV-appearances outside the UK, many people were not aware of Yes. In November 1969, Yes performed at the legendary German TV-show Beat Club. At the time nobody would have believed that their progressive rock sound should become that famous a couple of years later. The band did two more live sessions for Beat Club. The clips of Yours Is No Disgrace and I've Seen All Good People are the most famous ones. Some of the German footage was released on various DVD's, but as far as I know never on one disc. In 2009, the DVD The Lost Broadcasts was released for the first time, one year later followed by the second release.
The disc starts with the aforementioned Beat Club footage of November 1969 shot in black and white. Yes start with a rearranged version of the Richie Havens' song No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed from their second album Time And A Word which wasn't released at the time of this performance. This song was already a live favourite and became the opening piece for that album. The song is followed by two tracks from their eponymous debut album. The footage of Looking Around and Survival were previously unseen actually. Initially, they were not included for only one Yes song could be seen on TV. The next clip was shot at February 23, 1970 and features the title track from the second album in full-colour this time because the live show accorded with the available standards at the time. It's obvious to see that this is a playback performance. This footage shows Peter Banks on the electric guitar, but probably for the last time as he left the band just before the release of Time And A Word because of continuing tensions between Jon Anderson, Chris Squire and himself.
The final four tracks were all filmed at April 19, 1971. It starts with the second take of Yours Is No Disgrace. This take wasn't used for the TV-show because it was a bit faster than the version performed for the first take. In this clip Yes used the head and the chair we can also see on the cover of The Yes Album. This album was the debut for guitarist Steve Howe who plays a rather freaky solo on this long version of Yours Is No Disgrace with Jon Anderson on a keyboard. Tony Kaye, the band's main keyboardist, is almost unrecognizable since he's wearing a beard. The other three tracks are different versions of I've Seen All Good People. Three takes were needed before the band members were satisfied with the result. The first take is a mixture of two shots. First we see Bill Bruford playing the drums and then we see him clapping along with the music. The info on this DVD doesn't tell us which take was used for the actual broadcast on April 24, 1971. However, that really doesn't matter after watching this footage. The most important thing is that we can enjoy Yes in their early days. Most band members were still inexperienced and they hardly ever played in front of a TV-camera
From: https://www.backgroundmagazine.nl/DVDreviews/YesBroadcasts.html
Yes didn't invent progressive rock, but they helped bring it to mainstream audiences, steering the development and definition of the genre. Once their classic lineup of Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, and Bill Bruford locked into place for 1971's Fragile, the band crystallized all of the sonic and visual signifiers that eventually became synonymous with prog rock. Yes shifted between complicated time signatures, spliced pastoral folk, and Baroque classical in their muscular rock & roll, structured their songs as mini-suites, and wrapped the entire package in fantastical artwork by Roger Dean. From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/yes-mn0000685647/biography
