Yes Live: Hampton Beach Casino, N.H. 11/07/2008 / Benoit David & Oliver Wakeman / "Aliens" Performed

Here is audience-recorded audio of the British progressive rock group Yes performing live on the In The Present Tour at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in New Hampshire on Friday November 7, 2008. Benoit David handled lead vocals for this tour and Rick Wakeman's son Oliver played keyboards. The start times of each song and the album they are from are noted below.

The setlist for this show is pretty eclectic with selections from the 'Relayer", 'Tormato" and 'Drama' albums as well as the more usual heavy-duty crowd favorites. Steve Howe starts playing his first solo song "Mood For A Day" but then stops it out of annoyance with a loud fan in the front row to whom he says "I mean really...enough is enough!".

The song "Aliens (Are Only Us from the Future)" was performed during the first leg of Yes' In the Present world tour, but previously was never released on a Yes album. The song was later done for the Chris Squire/Steve Hackett project Squackett and released as "Aliens" on on their brilliant 2012 album "A Life Within a Day".

This particular venue's history includes one fateful night in July, 1971 when more than 4,000 ticket-less fans showed up to a sold-out Jethro Tull show where Yes was the warm up act. The show was booked just before Tull's album “Aqualung” took off and became a huge success. So when the band arrived in Hampton, fans began rioting as they tried to get into the ballroom.

A human tidal wave besieged the building, fans scaling walls and dropping through skylights on the roof. The riot prompted the National Guard to be called in. Ten youths were arrested and one police officer was injured. It was immediately following this event that the town of Hampton banned any further rock performances and the ballroom was shut down for three years.

Pictures/comments: http://forgotten-yesterdays.com/dates...

SETLIST:

1. Firebird Suite
2. Siberian Khatru (Close To The Edge) 2:50
3. Your Move / I've Seen All Good People (The Yes Album) 12:50
4. Heart Of The Sunrise (Fragile) 20:20
5. Tempus Fugit (Drama) 32:55
6. Onward (Tormato) 39:10
7. Astral Traveller (Time And A Word) 44:40
8. Close To The Edge (Close To The Edge) 52:20
9. Parallels (Going For The One) 1:13:00
10. And You And I (Close To The Edge) 1:19:45
11. Mood For A Day (Fragile) (aborted) 1:32:00
12. Clap (The Yes Album) 1:33:20
13. Long Distance Runaround (Fragile) 1:37:35
14. The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus) (Fragile) 1:41:10
15. Aliens (Are Only Us From The Future) 1:45:00
16. Machine Messiah (Drama) 1:51:00
17. Soon (Relayer) 2:02:30
18. Starship Trooper (The Yes Album) 2:09:20
19. Owner Of A Lonely Heart (90125) 2:23:05
20. Roundabout (Fragile) 2:29:20

LINEUP:

Steve Howe (Guitars)
Chris Squire (Bass)
Alan White (Drums)
Benoit David (Vocals)
Oliver Wakeman (Keyboards)


TAPER NOTES:

SolitaryPine Productions [SP012]

Taper: SolitaryPine
Mastering: SolitaryPine
Location: Dead Center at the Soundboard
Source: Edirol R-09 w/Internal Mics AGC=OFF / LOW CUT=OFF / MIC GAIN=LOW / [WAV 16bit/44.1kHz]
Conversion: Master WAVs - PC - Editing/Tracking - FLAC
Editing: Cool Edit Pro 2.1 [fades, 3dB boost]
CDWAV CUE for tracking
checksums: TLH ~ FLAC fingerprints & MD5

It is my utmost pleasure to bring you this release.

This was the the third show of the "In The Present" tour. It was the first show of the US leg of the tour. It was obvious that it's early in the tour and it will take a few more shows to get everything working like a well-oiled machine.

The venue - well - all I can say is, thank God I was able to get the "best seat in the house" for my R-09. Well above the floor and the noise of the crowd. Who would think that 1800 seats would be
so noisy!!

I usually tape with my Core Sound Binaural mics, but tonight was an exception to that rule. Our seats were in an awful location for taping, so we found a seat upgrade path for the trusty Edirol and we went with it. The new location prevented the CSB's from being used. But, it's amazing what the internal mics can pull off if you have a great location.

My rating: I give it an A+ for the recording, and a B+ for the performance.

The aborted Mood for a Day was due to Steve starting to to play and then getting frustrated and saying "Cmon really" as he switched guitars and jumped into Clap. I think he might have been unhappy with the sound or the tuning. They had quite a few sound and tempo problems all night. Let's leave it at the fact that a small venue, made out of wood, tends to be challenging for audio as well.

This recording is "raw" and no equalization was performed, only amplification (3dB) and fades were made with CE Pro.