Set for release on May 28th is the massive Yes Union 30 Live “Super Deluxe Box Set.” Best Classic Bands reported the colossal package includes 30 discs, featuring 26 CD's and four DVD's. The historical 1991 tour — and accompanying studio set — featured the most members of Yes from across the decades to ever share a stage.
The legendary Union touring lineup was Jon Anderson (lead vocals, acoustic guitar), Bill Bruford (electronic drums, percussion), Steve Howe (guitar, backing vocals), Tony Kaye (Hammond organ, keyboards, sound effects), Trevor Rabin (guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals), Chris Squire (bass, backing vocals), and Rick Wakeman (keyboards, synthesizers).
Rick Wakeman said in a statement, “It has been well documented that I loathed the Union studio album as the whole project was taken out of our hands and destroyed by those handed the responsibility for finishing it off. However, the Union tour was another matter. Probably the most amazing and enjoyable tour I have ever been on with Yes and I am so glad it was recorded and filmed as it was an incredibly special time that can never be repeated. The Union tour is for me, the most important event in Yes history.”
According to the official announcement:
The set features a multi-camera shoot DVD, with an accompanying soundtrack mixed by Trevor Rabin from the Shoreline Amphitheatre show on August 8, 1991. The collection is supplemented by a mixture of fan recordings, desk tapes and FM radio broadcasts.
The box set is packaged in a flight case with 10 “fatpack”-style jewel cases each containing three discs. Each heavy-duty flight case has been sprayed individually, and the stickers placed by hand. No two flight cases are the same, making each one unique and a highly collectable piece of rock and roll memorabilia.
The collection also includes: Numbered certificate, reproduction tour program, reproduction AAA laminate, reproduction cloth passes, 10 band photos, and two posters.
A while back we asked Rick Wakeman what Yes tour stood out for him as being the most exciting musically: “The Union tour for me — not the album, which is a pile of s*** — to put it bluntly. I mean, it really was, I mean, I don’t even have a copy in my house. We each got a box of, y'know, CD's and cassettes, and all mine were scattered over some freeway in America somewhere.”
Despite spending years in and out of the band, Wakeman admitted to us that he's actually the biggest Yes fan out there: “What a lot of people never understood is that apart from being in the band — or being out of the band, or whatever — I'm a Yes fan. I'm as much a fan of the music as all the other people who are fans of the band; I just happen to be in it as well at times, y'know?”
