Produced by Joseph Cottrell, Wayne Hall, Doug Curran and Jeffrey Crecelius
This week Mark and I listened to 2 medleys - the Big Medley from the The Word Is Live box set, recorded on 5th October 1978 at The Forum, Inglewood and a recording of Jon Anderson and The New Life Band playing their Yes medley in 1980 at The Royal Albert Hall from a BBC recording broadcast the same year.
Yes Medley - Jon Anderson - Royal Albert Hall Event 1980
The Big Medley (Time & a Word, Long Distance, Survival,The Fish, Perpetual & Soon) (Inglewood 1978)
It was a very entertaining process and, as you'll hear, Mark has a particularly interesting reaction to the rather different style of the New Life Band's interpretations, on a tour that Jon Anderson arranged to promote his recently-released second solo album, Song of Seven. Having just left Yes for the first time, he ended up being out on tour at the same time as the Yeggles version of Yes, who boasted Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn as part of their (fairly hastily assembled) lineup. For his part, Anderson collected together brilliant musicians but with a rather different instrumentation to the classic rock band arrangement.
The Big Medley wasn't played on The Drama Tour (unfortunately, some would say) so we can't compare these two performances directly, but they are very close in time.
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What songs were included in each medley?
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How does the New Life Band instrumentation work?
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Which ends up being a better Yes medley (and do we even make a decision on that)?
Do take a listen to the recordings I have embedded into the show notes for this week and let us know what you think in the comments over at YesMusicPodcast.com
