There was never a full concert audio format official release from the Big Generator tour, so a lot of fans seek out bootlegs.
Two of the higher rated bootlegs are different mixes of a bootleg called A Strange Peculiar Breed, recorded from a show in Austin, Texas on February 22, 1988. On Yessongs.nl (Now hosted on Forgotten Yesterdays as Yessongs.nl has voluntarily shut down. Yesfans.nl was actually once linked to by Yes' official social media, which a lot of us found a little surprising given that it was all bootlegs and bands sometimes don't like bootlegs.), the first recording was labeled "Mastered by M.P." and the second "Modified by Hilde". I'm guessing that the modified version is the better of the two, though the cover art of the earlier version looks cooler to me (Fortunately, with files, you can pick one set of recordings and assign it the other set's cover art).
For those who have heard them, what do you think of the show as recorded? Any songs that are particular good, particularly bad, or that have an interesting deviation from the studio version?
How do you rate the show relative to the other B.G. tour bootlegs that are out there? Do you have a different favorite bootleg from the tour? If so, what makes it your favorite?
Is there a show that you would rate as sort of peak "YesWest" or "Peak Rabin" where there is a lot of hard rocking and 80isms even relative to the other shows on the same tour?
How do you feel about the way the band plays the songs on the Big Generator tour relative to the 90125 tour? I would imagine that particularly for Trevor Rabin, on the first tour, he was probably playing the older songs from before his tenure the way he could learn quickly, but by the second tour, he might have had them down the way he wanted to play them, whether that was with greater fidelity to the source material, or as more tricked out personal versions that fit in better with the other music the band was doing. Which way do you all feel he went, if either, between tours, on specific songs or in general?
Tony Kaye (and Casey Young) also probably had adjustments to make, as despite being an original member of the band, Kaye was probably playing a lot of the Rick Wakeman era material for the first time on the 90125 tour, just like Rabin was, and, as with Rabin, may have also settled on what he viewed as a better version for the Big Generator tour, given time and experience with the pieces.
Even Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, and Alan White, who all had a ton of prior experience with the 70s stuff, may have had some adjustments to make to it given a different band lineup to play with, larger venues to play in, some new fans to play for, and some new music to intersperse the existing songs with. I wonder if anyone has noticed anything there.
We also of course have the entire 90125 lineup returning, and they might have some different takes on songs from that album, and even adjustments to Big Generator songs to play them live, even though they had just recorded them in the studio.
I'm listening through the modified version of A Strange Peculiar Breed for the first time (I'm sure I've seen/heard some of these on YouTube, but this is my first time listening to it as one pseudo-live album experience), with the caveat that I "down-converted" the Flac files to 320kbps MP3s because my collection is exclusively MP3s and AACs (MP4/M4A), as part of an effort to require as few formats as possible from future hardware and software as the world moves more and more to streaming and I anticipate having fewer options to pick from in terms of actually figuring out to play my entire non-streamed music collection on the same devices and the same software as time goes by.
It's too soon for me to have any deep thoughts (I'm still on my first listen and I have been doing other things as I've listened), but I'm curious as to whether Jon Anderson's spoken introduction to "Big Generator" (the song) helped anyone who wasn't sure about it based on the recorded version or the band's lineup find a way to sort of positively connect with it, even if it's never going to be your favorite song. I'd heard that intro before, but this reminded me of it.
Obviously, I'm particularly interested in luna65's take on the entire subject matter of this post, because it's highly likely she's listened to all these bootlegs and studied them, but I'm sure there are other folks who've heard one or more of the bootlegs, or even who were there at one of the tour stops in person back in the day who have cool stuff to add.
Two of the higher rated bootlegs are different mixes of a bootleg called A Strange Peculiar Breed, recorded from a show in Austin, Texas on February 22, 1988. On Yessongs.nl (Now hosted on Forgotten Yesterdays as Yessongs.nl has voluntarily shut down. Yesfans.nl was actually once linked to by Yes' official social media, which a lot of us found a little surprising given that it was all bootlegs and bands sometimes don't like bootlegs.), the first recording was labeled "Mastered by M.P." and the second "Modified by Hilde". I'm guessing that the modified version is the better of the two, though the cover art of the earlier version looks cooler to me (Fortunately, with files, you can pick one set of recordings and assign it the other set's cover art).
For those who have heard them, what do you think of the show as recorded? Any songs that are particular good, particularly bad, or that have an interesting deviation from the studio version?
How do you rate the show relative to the other B.G. tour bootlegs that are out there? Do you have a different favorite bootleg from the tour? If so, what makes it your favorite?
Is there a show that you would rate as sort of peak "YesWest" or "Peak Rabin" where there is a lot of hard rocking and 80isms even relative to the other shows on the same tour?
How do you feel about the way the band plays the songs on the Big Generator tour relative to the 90125 tour? I would imagine that particularly for Trevor Rabin, on the first tour, he was probably playing the older songs from before his tenure the way he could learn quickly, but by the second tour, he might have had them down the way he wanted to play them, whether that was with greater fidelity to the source material, or as more tricked out personal versions that fit in better with the other music the band was doing. Which way do you all feel he went, if either, between tours, on specific songs or in general?
Tony Kaye (and Casey Young) also probably had adjustments to make, as despite being an original member of the band, Kaye was probably playing a lot of the Rick Wakeman era material for the first time on the 90125 tour, just like Rabin was, and, as with Rabin, may have also settled on what he viewed as a better version for the Big Generator tour, given time and experience with the pieces.
Even Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, and Alan White, who all had a ton of prior experience with the 70s stuff, may have had some adjustments to make to it given a different band lineup to play with, larger venues to play in, some new fans to play for, and some new music to intersperse the existing songs with. I wonder if anyone has noticed anything there.
We also of course have the entire 90125 lineup returning, and they might have some different takes on songs from that album, and even adjustments to Big Generator songs to play them live, even though they had just recorded them in the studio.
I'm listening through the modified version of A Strange Peculiar Breed for the first time (I'm sure I've seen/heard some of these on YouTube, but this is my first time listening to it as one pseudo-live album experience), with the caveat that I "down-converted" the Flac files to 320kbps MP3s because my collection is exclusively MP3s and AACs (MP4/M4A), as part of an effort to require as few formats as possible from future hardware and software as the world moves more and more to streaming and I anticipate having fewer options to pick from in terms of actually figuring out to play my entire non-streamed music collection on the same devices and the same software as time goes by.
It's too soon for me to have any deep thoughts (I'm still on my first listen and I have been doing other things as I've listened), but I'm curious as to whether Jon Anderson's spoken introduction to "Big Generator" (the song) helped anyone who wasn't sure about it based on the recorded version or the band's lineup find a way to sort of positively connect with it, even if it's never going to be your favorite song. I'd heard that intro before, but this reminded me of it.
Obviously, I'm particularly interested in luna65's take on the entire subject matter of this post, because it's highly likely she's listened to all these bootlegs and studied them, but I'm sure there are other folks who've heard one or more of the bootlegs, or even who were there at one of the tour stops in person back in the day who have cool stuff to add.
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