Amazon:
This performance from December 1, 2009, despite being well recorded, is the worst I’ve ever heard by Yes. They’re sluggish, under-rehearsed, sloppy, uninspired and disinterested, with no spark or liveliness. Are these guys even enjoying themselves? It sounds like they don’t care. While they were a dinosaur band in the late 70s, they’re dried-up fossils now. Only Steve manages to recapture the magic of Yes, and only in moments which are brief and fleeting.
Oliver Wakeman can’t execute any of his father’s parts correctly, nor those of Tony Kaye or Geoff Downes. He sounds like an untalented Intermediate Keyboard student who just got a play-by-numbers book of Yes standards, as he messes up just about anything more complicated than a sustained chord. He’s repetitive, monotonous and annoying.
Fifteen years ago it was Steve dragging the pace of the songs down, but now Squire and White have joined him in the sluggish department, with Alan in particular being noticeably limp. Is this just due to the deterioration of age? I suspect not.
Benoit sounds better singing Trevor Horn’s parts than Jon’s, but his vocals are shrill, piercing, and headache-inducing as he strains for the high notes and has trouble finding them. What’s up with his vibrato? Is he nervous or hoping to land on the correct pitch for a fraction of a second? At least on the CD you can’t see him spinning around, ‚playing‘ his bongos, and otherwise acting like a jackass. The vocal harmonies are particularly appalling.
I never imagined Yes could play this badly. Here’s hoping they improved on their subsequent tours. If not, they should retire and stop embarrassing themselves.
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Wenn ich meinen Hund beleidigen will nenne ich ihn Mensch. (AS) „Weißt du, was ich manchmal denke? Es müsste immer Musik da sein. Bei allem was du machst. Und wenn's so richtig Scheiße ist, dann ist wenigstens noch die Musik da. Und an der Stelle, wo es am allerschönsten ist, da müsste die Platte springen und du hörst immer nur diesen einen Moment.“