Review of Yes Live In Philadelphia

Introduction

This is very much a for-fans-only title. Sanctuary have released a strictly no-frills live performance by supergroup Yes in Philadelphia in those far-off days of 1979. Not being a fan and having no information provided with the preview disc, I can`t tell you a lot about the band, apart from it featuring that elder statesman of Rock, Rick Wakeman. (I once called him Rick Wakefield in front of a neighbour, and I`ve never lived it down.) The band rose to prominence in 1970, and as practitioners of synthesizer-laden concept music with overtones of psychedelia, they enjoyed ten years of success (to the date of the concert).

Video

As a record of a live performance, it is workmanlike. The image is slightly blurry, but I`d put that down to it being made on standard NTSC video. For reasons best known to Sanctuary, they have cropped the image to 16:9 and then transferred it to disc as an anamorphic image, so any imperfections in the image are only magnified. Colours are blurry to match the general definition of the disc.

Audio

Only on the audio side does the disc show anything special. The soundtrack has been mixed to the disc as Dolby Digital 5.1 in a performance version and a with-commentary version. I honestly can`t discern anything to make the 5.1 mix any more special than a plain vanilla 2.0 mix would have sounded. After all, it would be unusual in 1979 for a concert performance to be recorded for video with anything more spectacular.

Features

The disc is strictly extras-free, with no subtitling available. The songs can be accessed separately, and there is a short 2 1/2 minute "review" of the concert by Chris Welch. The "track selection" menu expecially shows quite horrible artefacting.

Conclusion

As I said in my intro, this is sadly a fans-only title. For the mainstream market I can see little to attract anyone to this title, and the curious choices made in the production of the disc do nothing to improve things.