1.01 Firebird Suite (2.40)
1.02 Parallels (6.30)
1.03 I've Seen All Good People (7.10)
1.04 Close To The Edge (19.40)
1.05 Wonderous Stories (4.27)
1.06 Colours Of The Rainbow (1.08)
1.07 Turn Of The Century (8.00)
1.08 Tour Song (1.19)
1.09 And You And I (10.20)
1.10 Going For The One (5.55)
==============================
2.01 Flight Jam (4.17)
2.02 Awaken (17.48)
2.03 Starship Trooper (14.00)
2.04 Roundabout (9.40)
==============================

Yes
1977-09-23
Los Angeles, CA

(Mike Millard Master Tape audience mp3@256)

Master tape>dat>dat>cd-r>Bias Peak Pro 5.2.1>XACT>flac>Remaster>flac>mp3@256

1.01 Firebird Suite (2.40)
1.02 Parallels (6.30)
1.03 I've Seen All Good People (7.10)
1.04 Close To The Edge (19.40)
1.05 Wonderous Stories (4.27)
1.06 Colours Of The Rainbow (1.08)
1.07 Turn Of The Century (8.00)
1.08 Tour Song (1.19)
1.09 And You And I (10.20)
1.10 Going For The One (5.55)

2.01 Flight Jam (4.17)
2.02 Awaken (17.48)
2.03 Starship Trooper (14.00)
2.04 Roundabout (9.40)

When Yes headed for Switzerland to begin work on the follow-up album to “Relayer”, few could have predicted the changes that were about to occur. Ironically, it was Swiss-born keyboard player Patrick Moraz who would be at the center of yet another chapter of Yes internal turmoil, Despite receiving high praise for his work on the album “Relayer”, Moraz had felt restrained within the confines of the Yes fold and artistic differences resulted in open conflict between him and his band mates. Eventually, the axe was dropped and he was literally expelled from the band. This left Yes without a keyboard player and no new album in nearly two years. The prospects were not looking good, but then, who should arrive, but ….Rick Wakeman !

It is undeniable that the “Relayer” album remains one of the band’s finest works and that Patrick Moraz’ contribution to Yes was enormous for the short time that he was in the band. But for the die-hard fans, the earlier incarnation of Yes with Rick Wakeman was considered THE classic line-up. For all his brilliance and fine work, Patrick Moraz could never match the enormous popularity of Wakeman. Having Rick re-join the band was probably the best move that Yes could have made. Work on a new album could now begin.

Was it the band’s happiness to see Rick return, Wakeman’s enthusiasm for re-joining his old friends, or perhaps a little of both? We will never know for sure, but the fact remains that the work during those few weeks in a Swiss studio was nothing less than stellar. Energy and creativity must have been at high levels because Yes emerged with one of their finest albums to date, “Going For The One”. With such an impressive collection of new material, Yes were more than ready to go out and meet their fans again. The “Going For The One” tour began on July 30th, 1977, and ended on December 6th of the same year, drawing sold-out crowds each and every night. The set list was built around the new album, all five songs of which were often played, but also retained some cherished Yes classics such as ‘Close To The Edge’, ‘And You And I’, ‘Starship Trooper’ and ‘Roundabout’.

Sadly, even though the “Going For The One” show was performed 89 times, none of these concerts were recorded for broadcast purpose, that we know of did record at least one of their shows since part of a 1977 show did appear on the “Yesshows” live album. Still, no other soundboard recording from that tour is available. To hear a complete performance from the 1977 tour, fans would have to turn to audience recordings.

There are many such shows recordings available but, unfortunately, very few are of good quality. PRRP has released remastered versions of the Göthenburg and Providence shows, but the one that we bring you now, we humbly believe, is the best audience-recorded concert from the 1977 tour to have surfaced thus far. And we can thank Mr. Mike Millard for that.

Mike Millard was a rock music fan who lived in the Los Angeles area and had a particular interest in live music performances. Fortunately for us he also had excellent recording equipment. To elude security Mike would smuggle the equipment into the venue in the base of his wheelchair. Was Mike truly confined to a wheelchair or did he only use it as a prop? We don’t know for sure, but the fact remains that, prop or not, a wheelchair was an ideal place to conceal the recording gear. Millard, who always used the best quality cassette tapes available, seemingly had the knack for finding the perfect spot from which to record because his recordings usually show an almost perfect sound balance (perhaps another fringe benefit of the wheelchair use?). Some of the best live recordings of The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Yes from that time period, we owe to Mike Millard’s ingenuity and patience. Sadly, Mike passed away in 1990, but his legacy lives on. A number of his master recordings still exist in one form or another, including one of this amazing Yes performance at the LA Forum. We have done our best to minimize the minor flaws that exist in this master to bring you the very best Yes experience from 1977. Since Mike supported trading and loathed bootleg sellers, we are sure that he would approve of this new PRRP release, produced to enhance his great work. Enjoy !

Notes from the Re-Master
We began with a lossless version of Mike Millard’s master tape. The whole show is here but we suspect a few cuts from tape flips do exist in the tape, just well hidden. There is no missing music. As with most Mike Millard recordings the quality and frequency response are outstanding for the era. Mike must have also positioned himself in the perfect spot within the venue as the balance is even and there is no significant distant, delay effect. Still, the acoustics of the forum can be appreciated.
When listening to the master, it is obvious that the audience is quite vocal, even during periods when the music is playing. Dynamic filters were used to reduce this audience “contribution” to the overall sound. The next major problem was speed. The whole recording had an obvious speed error. Studio and live commercial references were used to calculate this speed error and correct it. The result is a much different sound than the original. Tonality is always affected by speed corrections but even after the speed correction additional tonality adjustment was necessary to balance the sound. Again, commercial live references were used to help in this process.
As good as Mr. Millard’s equipment was, it still seemed to suffer from auto-record level technology. This meant that intermittent suppressions were found after loud sections that needed to be restored. Hiss was also present and annoying in certain sections. This was reduced. Clicks and pops were removed or repaired where present and finally, the show was re-tracked to avoid sector boundary errors.