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Yes: Track Pack 1 – JM Gariepy

Roundabout
Album: Fragile
Release Year: 1971

Difficulty:
Band: Insane
Guitar: Insane
Pro Guitar: Insane
Bass: Insane
Pro Bass: Insane
Drums: Insane
Pro Drums: Insane
Keyboards: Insane
Pro Keyboards: Insane
Vocals: 5
Harmony: 5

Roundabout isn’t part of Track Pack 1, it comes with Rock Band 3.  Since we needed a warm up song before getting into a pack of challenging songs, we decided to use Roundabout.  It’s a little like warming up for the Tour de France, by doing a quick run through The Boston Marathon.

Ron:  I’d like to mention that I got 5 stars on expert vocals, despite the distracting reverb overdrive.

John-Michael: I got 5 stars too, except I was playing hard on normal guitar.  There’s no way I would have gotten through that song on expert.  We’ve played Roundabout a few times before, so that should give you an understanding as to what are play skills are like.

Roundabout is a solid song.  After doing well for about three minutes, I was feeling good about how this song would wrap up, but then I remembered that we’re playing a Yes song, and hunkered down for another five minutes of playing.  This pattern was repeated with every song we played tonight.

I’ve Seen All Good People
Album: The Yes Album
Release Year: 1971

Difficulty:
Band: Insane
Guitar: 4
Pro Guitar: 5
Bass: 5
Pro Bass: 5
Drums: 4
Pro Drums: 4
Keyboards: Insane
Pro Keyboards: Insane
Vocals: 4
Harmony: 4

I’ve Seen All Good People has a good singing exercise in it.  It’s a pity the song jams the singing exercise at the back of the song, so it isn’t useful to use it as a warm up for all of your Yes songs, just the ones that come after I’ve Seen All Good People.  The lyrics feel like you’re eating in a Chinese Restaurant, and one of the bus boys has dumped an entire tray of fortune cookies on top of you.

John-Michael:  I always thought this song was written by George Harrison.  It feels on par with his style.  The guitar is pretty simple at first, then Rockband jams a knife in the back of your hand and manipulates you like a puppet asking the impossible.

Ron:  The impossible is exactly what the lead guitarist does.  Also, the vocals on all of these Yes songs are misleading, and you will struggle to not sing harmony.

Owner of a Lonely Heart:
Album: 90125
Release Year: 1983

Difficulty:
Band: 2
Guitar: 3
Pro Guitar: 2
Bass: 2
Pro Bass: 2
Drums: 3
Pro Drums: 3
Keyboards: 3
Pro Keyboards: 3
Vocals: 4
Harmony: 4

Ah, 90125.  This album much maligned by Yes fans for going mainstream, and leaning toward New Wave influences, and was loved by the masses for going mainstream and leaning toward New Wave influences.  Owner of a Lonely Heart is a welcome sight in this track pack, because it’s a small stretch of downhill bicycling before trekking up mountains.

John-Michael:  The guitars are simple, but the occasional spastic rush up and down the scale can be a bit mean.  This is the only song I will play on expert today, and I smashed it.  Take that Steve Howe!

Ron:  It’s a bit repetitive on the vocals, but you knew that already, didn’t you?  It’s a captivating song.  Probably because the lyrics make no sense.

Starship Trooper
Album: The Yes Album
Release Year: 1971

Difficulty:
Band: 5
Guitar: Insane
Pro Guitar: N/A
Bass: 3
Pro Bass: N/A
Drums: 4
Pro Drums: 4
Keyboards: Insane
Pro Keyboards: Insane
Vocals: 4
Harmony: 4

Otherwise known as AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The Robert A. Heinlein book, Starship Troopers was published in 1959.  Song written in 1971.  Though what “Knowledge of the land, spoke to me in sweet accustomed ways” has to do with shooting buggers is beyond my knowledge.  It would be pretty awesome, though, if there was a movie named Starship Trooper 2, which was a sequel to this song, and is a magical world of strange trippy mushroom and talking trees.  I could imagine the audience in their seats, waiting for Neil Patrick Harris to come in and start blasting everything away, while singing a stirring song about the differences between citizens and civilians.

Ron:  Yeah.  That’s a pretty sweet Mic tap solo for about 50% of the song.

John-Michael:  There’s one interesting part on guitar mixed with multiple sections of ho-humdrum.  Hard mode seemed too basic.  I could hear that I was only hitting a quarter of the notes being played, and could easily hit quite a few more.  That’s an annoying combination.

Overall, a fine song, but does not translate well to Rockband.  It’s the weakest song of the Track Pack.

South Side of the Sky
Album: Fragile
Release Year: 1971

Difficulty:
Band: Insane
Guitar: 5
Pro Guitar: N/A
Bass: 4
Pro Bass: N/A
Drums: 5
Pro Drums: 5
Keyboards: 5
Pro Keyboards: 5
Vocals: 4
Harmony: 4

Very interesting difficulties.  There isn’t a single instrument with a difficulty of ‘Insane’, but the difficulty for the band is ‘Insane’.  Maybe Rockband knows that, after sailing the endless sea of Yes songs, there will be to be threats of mutiny aboard the crew.

Ron:   Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh….

John-Michael: Is that a line?  I think that’s just an error, and there’s this line there, and you’re not supposed to sing it.

Ron:  Aaaaaaahhhh…. No.  That’s a note.  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.

John-Michael:  I decided to play bass for this song.  The song has a good rhythm and lots of interesting fiddly parts.  One of the bonuses to playing Yes is that the Bass section will be as intricate, or more intricate than the Lead Guitar.  Too many other bands on Rockband suffer from the “We knew this bassist in high school.  He can keep up” blues.

Not played by us:  Insane Piano solo section.  Had I been playing the ridiculous piano solo on easy, we would have lost.  Absurd.

Ron:  That was so long ago, I did not remember that.  I blame the lack of oxygen.

Heart of the Sunrise
Album: Fragile
Release Year: 1971

Difficulty:
Band: Insane
Guitar: 5
Pro Guitar: N/A
Bass: 5
Pro Bass: N/A
Drums: 5
Pro Drums: 5
Keyboards: Insane
Pro Keyboards: Insane
Vocals: 3
Harmony: 3

Ron asked me how the lyrics to this song goes to prep him for the song, and I couldn’t remember them despite the crazy music playing in the demo loop.  Five minutes later, we’re playing the song, the lyrics start, and it turns out this happens to be my favorite Yes song.  Yes is a funny band.

Ron:  Freehawkin’ Hades.  Most of this is tapping the mic, and is not a solo.  Boredom.

John-Michael:  I wanted to play one of these songs on piano before we were done for the day, but the correct thing to do was to go back in time and play piano for South Side of the Sky.  Like Ron, I was forced to wait it out for long stretches, and touch the occasional note.  There were some awesome things I was missing out on in Guitar and Bass from the sound of it.  This isn’t a bad song, I just think Ron and I had the wrong two instruments for it.

Final Synopsis

The music of Yes is intricate and rich, and makes excellent material for Rockband.  Many sections of the songs danced up and down the guitar’s keyboard, and the music will keep you on your toes as you’re confronted with strange rhythms and tricky timing cues, that somehow sound beautiful and drag you into a body of work that can be as stunning as nature itself.  The trip through the woods, up the side of a waterfall, behind the brook and back again, may need to be a lonely one, though, since many of the instruments, especially vocals and piano, will have long extended solos, followed by an absence of any activity.  If you play Yes’ track pack with a number of friends, expect them to make fun of how many times they have to slap a tambourine against their thigh, while they wait for the seventh minute of the song to pass.  If you have patient friends, this will be fine, because the quality of Yes’ musical craftsmanship will shine through in the end.  If your friends are impatient clouts, however, they’ll end up stepping all over that craftsmanship while they argue about what toppings they want on their pizza.

If, however, you are a lonely bugger who spends more time locked in the attic playing Rockband by yourself (like me), Yes’ first track pack can be a godsend.  It’s well worth the price of admission.  While Ron and I have taken up a number of paragraphs laughing at how long and complex these songs are, this is exactly the sort of music you want to be downloading for your two dollars.  Tracks that have considerable depth, keep you thinking, and leave you happily exhausted.