Yes - The Crystal Palace Bowl, London, Britain, 7-31-1971

I've previously mentioned on my blog that there's very little music from the British prog rock band Yes prior to 1972 with excellent sound quality other than their studio albums, plus the two albums of BBC sessions that I've posted here. In 1972, their popularity exploded, and there are a whole bunch of official live albums from that year (and after). Aside from the BBC stuff, there are some excellent sounding 1971 live recordings. I've gathered them all together here to make one concert album out of them. 

I call this "The Crystal Palace Bowl, London, Britain, 7-31-1971," because a majority of the music here - 46 minutes - comes from that show. But there are two other sources. The first three tracks were recorded in Gothenburg, Sweden, in January 1971. The last three tracks were recorded in New Haven, Connecticut, in August 1971. Together, those two sources add up to another 37 minutes of music. So if you add it all up, you get one hour and 24 minutes, which is enough for a typical concert.

I've put these three sources together because they all sound truly excellent, while all other live recordings from 1971 or before - generally audience bootlegs - sound significantly worse. The Crystal Palace Bowl and Gothenburg recordings come from an official box set of live performances called "The Word Is Live." It's a shame they didn't release more from these two shows. I don't know if that's because this is all there is, or if some editing choices were made. These shows haven't been bootlegged otherwise. As for the New Haven show, that's a soundboard bootleg. That bootleg is also only part of the show. There are a couple more songs from that source, but I didn't include them because they're versions of songs already featured here.

This is the last Yes album I plan on posting (although that might change if I find something worthy). There's lots of material with excellent sound quality from 1972 and beyond, both officially released and on bootleg. I wanted to highlight the little there is from before 1972. Although this comes from three different sources, I think it sounds like a coherent single concert.

01 Everydays (Yes)
02 talk (Yes)
03 Astral Traveller (Yes)
04 Yours Is No Disgrace (Yes)
05 talk (Yes)
06 I’ve Seen All Good People [Your Move - All Good People] (Yes)
07 talk (Yes)
08 America (Yes)
09 talk (Yes)
10 It’s Love (Yes)
11 Clap - Classical Gas [Instrumental] (Yes)
12 talk (Yes)
13 Perpetual Change (Yes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701233/YESS1971_CrystlPlaceBwlLondnBrtin__7-31-1971_atse.zip.html

Yes played the Crystal Palace Bowl in 1972 as well as 1971. I found a good color photo of them in that venue from 1972, but none from 1971, so I used the 1972 photo.