09/08/01 Radio City Music Hall, New York City NY. 170mins

Lineage: csb> D8> se-u55> sound studio> toast> cdr(1)> flac 8> this torrent


Comments from the taper, Jon Babcock.
Visit http://home.earthlink.net/~j.babcock/data/shows/Yes/j.babcock.yeslist.html:

At LEAST 5 tapes of this one, and at least 1 video. I have only heard my tape, and it's the ONLY really great, complete tape I got out of the whole tour. I like to get a little of the audience ambiance at the beginning and the end, and this and Philly were the only times that I was able to do that. There were only a few detractions here:

1.) I was on the center aisle and had to block the clearly visible mics from security twice. (Once during Solar Winds and once during PC) but that didn't seem to matter when listening to it.

2.) I had the Coresounds Binaurals clipped to my shirt, about 10 inches apart, hidden by my hair.

3.) The guy right in front of me was a whistler and an exhaustive clapper, and the guy behind me to my right was clapping vigorously.
The clappers were why I chose the shirt placement, listening carefully at the show, I was sure that if the mics were clipped near my ears then I'd get all those clap spikes that can mar a really good recording. So I lost the Binaural effect in favor of using my body to block some of the sound from behind. It kind of worked, too. Shaun liked this so much he did some remastering, which probably makes up for the fact that it was transferred with an 1/8 jack from my DAT to the Hard drive(3rd row center aisle, 1st mezz, CSB>DAT>CDR, otherwise). But hell. At least I got the levels right, eh? So here is what mine looks like, in case you end up with it.

JB's Radio:

Disc One (71:56)
1. Crowd ambiance 1:46
2. Give Love Each Day Intro 2:41
3. Close To The Edge 20:38
4. Symphonic Interlude - Long Distance Runaround 5:09
5. New Songs Introduction 0:54
6. Don't Go 4:36
7. Introduction (Alan Vamp) 0:41
8. In The Presence Of 10:36
9. Introduction 1:27
6. The Gates Of Delirium 23:20

Disc Two (44:24)
1. Solar Winds 2:39
2. Clap 4:46
3. Starship Trooper 11:54
4. Perpetual Change 12:59
5. And You And I 12:02

Disc Three (52:14)
1. Introduction 1:27
2. Ritual (with the never-ending drum solo) 30:39
3. Introduction 0:30
4. I've Seen All Good People 7:12
5. Applause 2:52
6. Roundabout 6:37
7. More Applause 2:16
8. Ambient Tape (7, 8 or 9?) 0:36

My Comments:

This was the last Yessymphonic show in the US, and it was a good one, if a little uneven. Steve was playing really well, but Alan seemed a little slow-footed at times. He cut Howe's Starship Trooper solo off, and a mini-trainwreck ensued. Still, I remember being blown away by Gates, Ritual, and Perpetual Change.

Jon and I sat in the third row of the first balcony, if memory serves, and the mix was great. Jon's recording is very, very good. The only critique I can come up with is that the high freqs. aren't as crisp as they could/should be. If your system has tone controls, just turn the treble up a notch and enjoy!!

--Dave A.