I was a bit skeptical of this DVD when I first purchased it. It has been the very rare occasion when a rock band and symphony can play well together and not step on each others toes, or sound just plain ridiculous. Michael Kaman has lent his orchestra to several rock bands and movie soundtracks - Metallica being the most recent and famous. Deep Purple and The Scorpions have recently released symphonic concert DVDs, and Kiss, for Christ' sake, even joined the fray recently with their Kiss Symphony DVD. These rock/orchestra hybrids have produced very mixed results - occasionally interesting, often terrible. Other bands have used orchestral arrangements on their albums to brilliant affect - The Beatles and The Moody Blues for example. With legendary keyboardist Rick Wakeman no longer recording with them, and longtime keyboardist Tony Kay no longer in the band, Yes basically decided to use a full orchestra to fill the void while recording their excellent new album Magnification. If any of you saw Yes with Rick Wakeman on their 2002 Masterworks tour, you will realize that that is a pretty even tradeoff.

Since the Magnification album turned out so well (highly recommended), Yes decided to see how it would sound live with their classic songs as well. The results are stunning. The concert was recorded in Amsterdam with the help of the European Festival Orchestra. I've got four words to describe this orchestra: young, hot, European, chicks! Not your typical orchestra, but they played as good as they looked. Certain styles of rock music lends itself better to orchestration than others. Progressive-rock is one of those styles, and Yes is the granddaddy of all progressive-rock bands. Their style of music is also often referred to as symphonic-rock. How appropriate now.

For the past eight or nine years, Yes has been back together with the classic lineup of Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, and Alan White. Rick Wakeman has done some work with them during this time, both in the studio and on tour, but they have basically had a revolving door of keyboardists lately. Their keyboardist-of-the-moment for this concert was Tom Breslin who does a mighty respectable job. It is truly inspiring to see a great band like Yes make such a grand comeback this late in their careers. Most people had written them off after a few mediocre albums and major personnel changes during the early nineties. Their last two studio releases, The Ladder,and Magnification, are both outstanding albums, which contain some of their finest work in twenty years. And as this DVD amply demonstrates, they are still one of the best live bands in the world.