Yes
Pre-tour Rehearsals
Expanded and More Complete
Lilitz, PA
1977

Lineage: audience tape recording (unknown gear) -> Maxell XLII C-90 -> Sound Forge -> FLAC

This recording is more complete than the Highland CD version, which was seeded on Dimeadozen not long ago. Highland probably decided to maximize profits by cutting costs and restricting the material to a single CD. Some run-throughs of Colours of the Rainbow which were not on the Highland CD are included here.

Great little story behind this one: Zombiwoof got this tape from someone who claimed to have been the janitor working at the Lilitz facility during the time Yes was hanging out in the Pennsylvania countryside, rehearsing for their soon-to-start 1977 world tour. The janitor claims he got more than 16 hours of tapes of the rehearsals from the garbage can! Zombiwoof has gone back to see if he can find this person and the other 14.5 hours. Keep your fingers crossed, but don't hold your breath... except for the 30-year-old garbage smell!

Overall quality of this recording is better than Highland's CD, which was probably taken from a higher generation copy of the source. Bass distortion is still evident in loud passages, and the automatic volume control kicks in at a few strange places, like the bells in Colours of the Rainbow. I tracked the recording in the order found on the cassette.

The tape was in good shape when I made the digital transfer, using my less-than-perfect cassette deck and a Xitel Inport connection. The 24 bit/48 khz transfer was equalized to cut hiss and remove a nasty hum in the first part of Disk 2. Side one of the tape ran a little slow, and the pitch has been corrected. Those pops and clicks when the tape was stopped and restarted have been removed. Otherwise, this is pretty much the unaltered transfer of the recording, recoded to 16 bit/44.1 kHz for CD compatibility.

Personally, I think the two sides of the tape may be reversed. Listen to disk two first, which ends with a rough version of And You And I, then go to the run-through on disk one, which is more refined. Yes plays Parallels better on disk one, and it has a more "finished" ending, which might mean it's the second run-through, too. Of course, the entire tape could be in no particular order of performance, so set your player on "shuffle" and have at it!

TheTooleMan
October, 2007

Jon Anderson
Chris Squire
Steve Howe
Alan White
Rick Wakeman

Tracks
Disk 1 (Tape side one)
And You And I #1 (warm-up)
And You And I #1
The Boys, Jamming
Parallels #1 (warm-up)
Parallels #1 (complete)
Colours of the Rainbow #1
Colours of the Rainbow #2
Turn of the Century #1 (breakdown)
Turn of the Century (warm-up)
Turn of the Century (complete performance, last seconds cut when tape ran out)

Disk 2 (Tape side two)
Awaken (warm-up)
Awaken (breakdown)
Awaken (restarted)
Parallels #2 (warm-up)
Parallels #2 (breakdown)
Parallels #2 (post-breakdown ambience)
And You And I #2