This set comes from 2001, in the wake of Magnification, the studio album Yes recorded with an orchestra. But while that record found them using strings to replace an absent Rick Wakeman (indeed, there was no full-time keyboardist on the album), this is a typical Yes concert, featuring several Magnification tracks as well as the usual array of classics from the catalog, with an orchestra surging behind them. And honestly, it doesn’t work as well as one might hope.

The members of the European Festival Orchestra (how’s that for a generic name?) are talented enough; the problem is, classical rhythm and rock rhythm (never mind jazz rhythm) are too different to truly meet in the middle, and this album flops in the same ways most rock-band-with-strings albums flop. They add some really nice intros to “Roundabout” and other songs, but when the songs are underway, they mostly contribute surges in the background, like a movie soundtrack, and Yes are forced to slow down slightly, but noticeably, in order to make sure the orchestra can keep up, and to make room for them in the already tight/stuffed arrangements. It winds up making the band sound tired, like they’re not playing at the peak of their powers. (Which they probably weren’t in 2001, though they’ve gotten worse since.) It was a good idea in theory, but the execution is kind of a letdown.