Thanks to Pete and Steve for bring this wonderful site back!!! Wow!!

This was my first and perhaps very best Yes concert. I was in the USAF 589th Band in Tampa and many of my barracks-mates (musicians all and very appreciative of the music on a technical basis as well as an esthetic basis) were there also. I remember the blankets and the fact that my roommate's girlfriend was under the same blanket as I and she had "wandering hands". That fact, combined with the quality of the crisp air and the crisp music (not to mention the window-pane!) makes this one that I wish I had a recording of. To this day, I just don't think it gets any better! ken a-t kdebusk d-o-t c-o-m

I concur with Dominick and Christopher’s review of the concert. For my friends and me, it was a major high point in our high school years. I was a senior in 1974. The crowd I hung with followed Yes’s every move. When the concert announced we immediately bought tickets. This was right in the middle of the infamous gas shortage, so I invited enough friends to completely fill the family station wagon and my parents were good enough to let me keep the car in the garage, full of gas for an entire week, so we’d be able to get to Tampa and back without having to depend on finding an open gas station. The concert was simply wonderful. It was awfully cold that evening but none of us felt it. On the way home I turned up the wrong interstate (I-75 instead of I-4) and took quite a long detour getting home. I drove at 50 miles an hour to conserve fuel and prayed a lot. We made it back home on vapors. A truly great experience that is still fresh after all this time. Enjoy the pics!

I was 17 years old that cold crystal clear night. The canopy of stars over Tampa Stadium was the perfect setting for this "as-close-to-magical-as-it-gets" night. It was tremendous....I will nerver forget this concert!

The Feb 9, 1974 Tales from Topographic Show, was absolutely phenonmenal. The coldest night of the year camped out under a sea of blankets on the field of Tampa Statium under the stars. A magical night, the band played all of the Close To The Edge album, to a truly mesmerized crowd, I repeat to a truly MESMERIZED crowd, not a bored crowd as some have indicated. Jon then asked the crowd if they wanted the band to continue since the temp was hovering around 30 degrees, the crowd erupted with tumultuous affirmation for the band to continue. Yes then launched into all 4 sides of Tales to a ecstatic audience. My most memorable Yes show of all. How the band could play flawlessly under those conditions was beyond me, although I think the massive stage lighting kept the band warm.

This is a very intersting Tales show on two accounts.

The first one is a Wakeman solo during the Intermission. He plays parts of classical pieces, not too much different than his solo on the 'Yessongs' album. No solo album stuff though. I never heard of him doing this on the Tales tour.

The other thing is the audience reaction to the show. They sounded kinda bored during the 'Close To The Edge' material! (especially during the 'I get up I get down' part on CTTE itself) and went nuts during the 'Tales' part. In fact when Anderson announced that they were going to play the entire Tales album people started screaming like a bunch of drunk rednecks that were just told the next song was "Freebird". ;-)

Jon Anderson:
Thank you, thank you. I don't wish to get involved but could you all sit down. It just seems to be a majority to the situation that's all. It seems to be getting warmer unless it's me. We'd like to carry on with the title track from the same album. We hope you'll like it. It's called 'Close To The Edge'.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you very much thank you. [???]. Chopin, Bach and [???] a bit of Beethoven from Mr. Rick Wakeman. He's going to play some keyboards for you.

Jon Anderson:
He, he told me it was Beethoven. Thank you for all staying, it's fantastic. We're going to carry on uh with..uh..our new album...we hope you'll stick in with us because we're going to play it all for you.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you all again very very much for sticking with us. We hope to see again very soon. Thank you. Okay. [???]