SYMPHONIC LIVE

Symphonic Live is YES‘ DVD and live album recorded at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam on 22 November 2001, with the European Festival Orchestra conducted by Wilheilm Keitel. It was first released on DVD in 2002 and on CD in 2003 and 2009 by Eagle Rock Entertainment.

Personnel

Jon Anderson
Vocals

Alan White
Percussion

Steve Howe
Guitars, Vocals

Chris Squire
Bass, Vocals

Recommended Versions

Symphonic Live 2025 Cover Artwork

The Original 2002 Symphonic Live Artwork

Returning to the YES Symphonic Era

When I decided to rework my illustrations for Mercury’s reissue of Symphonic Live, I originally set out to create an updated version of my 2002 artwork from the original release of the live album. I thought I’d repurpose the existing models and incorporate the scene into newer software and reconstructed with a couple decades of experience and improved skills under my hat.

What emerged were two separate and distinct cover illustrations.

I quickly discovered that my old CG models created with Y2K era tech were messy and completely unusable, so I began the painstaking task of rebuilding everything, including the Talisman model, which I also incorporated into the reimagined art for the forthcoming new edition of Magnification. But as the Symphonic Live project advanced, an all new scene began to take shape, something more intimate.

“Sacred Ground”

The first illustration I created for the Symphonic Live reissue began as a new version of the 2002 cover, but evolved in a new and different direction. Titled “Sacred Ground”, the alternative cover was originally intended to be the new cover art. It features glowing interdimensional portals with a hand-drawn father and child standing on sacred ground a little too close to the edge of a high cliff. But what does it all mean? While I have my own conceptual intentions, its true meaning is entirely up to you – especially if you look carefully at some of the details.

Additionally, I’ve always loved the Hipgnosis take on Roger Dean’s YES logo, and given how Aubrey “Po” Powell masterfully directed the Symphonic Live concert film, I thought I’d bring back that version of the logo last seen on Going For The One and Tormato, as a tribute to Po and his partner, the late Storm Thorgerson.

As it neared completion, however, this new scene seemed too much of a visual departure from the layout of my original 2002-era cover art, so I chose to create a second illustration based more closely to what I created 24 years earlier. Hence, the two covers.

“Symphonic Live”

The biggest challenge for what ended up being the official front cover was creating the vast forest, extending miles and miles to the mountain range in the distance. For the original 2002 art, I simply created a texture map for the ground cover. But this time, I wanted “actual” trees with leaves, branches, and trunks.

The result was planting of more than 2.2 million CG-modelled trees including variations of Eucalyptus, White Willow, and Poplar. With so many trees, rendering the scene became so taxing on my computer that I had to separate it into sections and assemble everything in Photoshop. I’m not sure whether this is good or bad craftsmanship, but the illustration contains 34 million polygons.

“The Thread Between Together”

In addition to creating something YES-ish without imitating Roger Dean, one of my goals was to create immersive, large scale scenes that’d bring back the old days of examining LP sleeve art while listening to the music. This was especially front of mind while working on the 12×24 inch gatefold illustration, “The Thread Between Together”, showing four colossal Talisman monuments relaying bolts of energy to open a dimensional rift. The central mountain is based on Oregon’s Mount Hood.

“Giant Under the Sun”

“Giant Under The Sun” is a straight up tribute to Chris Squire, featuring a humpback whale rejoicing before a massive oceanic Talisman. And yes, I get that whales aren’t fish, but I didn’t want any specific references to the fish in Roger’s brilliant Topographic Oceans painting, hence the whale. If you look carefully throughout the Symphonic Live sleeve art, you’ll see a few more easter eggs for both Chris and Alan White.

“The Bettis Expedition”

Late in the process, I decided to have some fun bridging the ancient and modern eras of interdimensional reality, so I created an archival photograph of an early 20th Century explorer’s discovery of a Talisman while it’s partially exposed by melting ice, adapting a public domain photograph by Herbert G. Ponting, circa 1911. The story of the explorer in the foreground continues in the Magnification reissue sleeve art, as well as Jon Anderson’s short story, The Machine.

One final note: every composition was modeled, composited, or digitally hand-drawn by me, except for elements of the aforementioned Ponting photo. While I don’t necessarily have any biases against the ethical and reasonable usage of AI, none of the illustrations were created using this emerging technology. However, I used Photoshop’s generative tools to clean-up and composite some of the CG renders.

Thank you to everyone at Mercury Studios for inviting me to work on this special edition of Symphonic Live, and to Jordan Berliant for initially commissioning my work back in 2001. I’m especially grateful for the support of the YES fan community, many of whom I met for the first time during the Symphonic tour all those many years ago…

Bob Cesca
Artist: Magnification, Symphonic Live, Conspiracy: The Unknown

The 2025 release of Symphonic Live is available here.