My date and I had 1st balcony tickets for the late show, which didn't start until well after midnight, though the tickets said 10:30. YES came out and blew the crowd away. Rick Wakeman was new to the YES lineup and made quite an impression! YES easily won over those who weren't familiar with them, the response was rapturous.
ELP finally came on stage after 1:30AM, and despite some technical gremlins, played a memorable set. At one point Lake told the crowd to "shut the fuck up", but ELP carried on. It was well after 3AM before we left the building. An hour or two later I lost my virginity. The power of music!
One of the greatest, most memorable nights of my entire life!

OK R North. Not sure when I bought it. That was a long time ago. But that was the concert that stirred my interest in Yes, and I will never forget it. Oh to be able to travel back in time! Thanks for clearing that up for me!

Went to see ELP in Chicago, 1971. No idea if there was an opening act until we got to the auditorium. There was a rumor going around that YES was the opener ! We couldn't believe it. My friends and I had just fallen in love with "the YES Album," the first YES album we knew of. So the house lights are still on, the crowd is still coming in and there's a guy, a roadie I thought, trying out the Hammond organ. He's tall with long blonde hair and is absolutely smokin' on the B-3. I'm thinking,"listen to that guy ! Their freakin' roadie plays better than I do !" Then the band started and I had my first exposure to the great Rick Wakeman. Been a fan ever since.

ronnfigg: Sorry, but you didn't buy Fragile the next day. It wasn't released yet! Fragile was
released in England November 26, 1971 and in the US January 4, 1972. I was one of the first
people in the US to have a copy of Fragile as i got it November 28, 1971 having it shipped special delivery from England!

I too was at this concert. I was there to see ELP, and as the only concert I had seen before this was Led Zeppelin (who had no opening act) I was not accustomed to opening acts. When the Firebird Suite(?) started with the lights down I thought this was an ELP thing since Emerson used a lot of classical quotes in his music. I was confused to see 5 people on stage. And Keith didn't have shoulder length blonde hair. I was also listening to underground radio at the time (Triad, WGLD) and probably didn' realize I recognized the songs I was hearing. I was impressed with the musicianship and enjoyed the set. If my memory serves me correctly they got 2 encores (or atleast played 2 encore songs) because I was getting antsy for ELP and wanted to get on with that part of the evening.
This show was definitely at the Auditorium Theatre. No mistaking that. Someone needs to correct the Venue listing on this forum. I saw the Arie Crown Theatre show and that was with Allen White, because I remember my confusion with the identity of the drummer while watching the show. And that show did open with the Firebird and Siberian Khattru.
Of course this was 37 yeas ago so parts of my recollection could be in err, but the venue was definitely the Auditorium.
Needless to say I bought Fragile the next day and played the hell out of it. From that day on I was a Yes fan. No one has ever touched on creating prog that could hold a candle to them. They played orchestrally though sheer musicianship.

The concert was at the Auditorium Theatre on November 14, 1971 and Yes was the opening act for Emerson Lake & Palmer. I lived in Chicago from June through December 1971, so that's the year it occurred. It was at the Auditorium Theatre because we rode the subway to the loop to get there. We were there primarily for Emerson Lake & Palmer, but were blown away that evening by Yes, the opening act. Fans were crawling up and down the thick stone pillars as we waited for the doors to open. What a concert! Best memories of the concert include Jon Anderson doing Your Move, Steve Howe doing The Clap, and amazing Keith Emerson on the Hammond organ and the Moog synthesizer. What a night!

If my memory serves me right, I think there were two separate Yes/ELP concerts that night at the Auditorium Theatre, one at 7:00 and one at 11:00. We went to the second one, as I remember it was very late before we got inside.

Fuck whatever douchebag made that last post in my name. Seems to be quite a common thing these days for people to impersonate me, most recently on Yes' own messageboard... I have since found out from my original source that the 11/14/71 tape is actually from Europe, most likely Amsterdam. Just look at the setlistss before and after 11/14/71, it doesn't match.

My Bad!!! Ignore my lower posting about my release of the audience recording that has circulated for many years. The mislabeling story is quite correct, and there are no other versions of this date around other than mine. I know this to be fact! However, to set the record straight, I never "traded" it, I actually SOLD the tape way back in 1983. Why should I have given it away? Since then I have made quite a bit on Yes Bootlegs, but this one will always be special to me as the first.

Actually my mistake on previous post.

When Yes played with ELP at the Auditorium in Chicago I do beleve they were just playing the Yes Album Steve was touring with them and not Rick because I remember seeing Tony Kaye play his style of keys.

The next time Yes toured they did the Fragile album with Rick and they played Close to the Edge before it was released. This concert was at the Arie Crown.

It was also at the Auditorium Theather on Congress in Chicago

This was not the International Amphitheatre, it was the Arie-Crown Theatre. I was at this show, and I remember that none of us had much knowledge of Yes before the show. We were there for ELP. At the time, I was a raving Keith Emerson freak, enamored of the sound of his B3, as well as his theatrics.

But, when Yes came out, things changed. I've forgotten most of the 70s (grin), but I do remember them playing ISAGP, I think because it was a song I remember hearing on Progressive radio in Chicago (either Triad or WGLD, I'm sure). As the set continued, the crowd got more and more turned on by this band with Squire's spinning bass work, and Rick Wakeman's waist length blond hair flowing behind him as he spun between more keyboards than I had ever seen in one place.

After Wakeman's solo, and Long Distance Runaround, the crowd was on their feet, screaming for more... I think that, other than Pink Floyd, I've seen more Yes shows than any other band. This night was definitely the reason why!

...Oh yeah -- ELP was great, too!

As I've said several times in various Yes forums over the past 4 years (but here is a REALLY good place to hammer it home), the audience recording from this gig is NOT from Chicago, unless I got hella-lucky. At the time I got it from a friend it was unlabeled, and I only had the Cobo Hall Tales show in my collection (circa 1979), so I labeled it with my brother's birthday (Nov 14th), the logical year of the tour judging by the setlist (1971) and the location of the only other boot I had from them (Chicago, IL). Unless another source for the show circulated, I began trading a 11/14/71 Chicago show as early as 1983 and it is more than likely this same show.

I apologize for having done that, at the time I had no idea what I was doing. In fact, I had no idea they even played Chicago on that date since there were no tourographies back in '79 that someone could cross-check, and I never thought there would be...

I'm sure Mike means 1971 as Yes never played in the US before June 1971 and the first Emerson Lake and Palmer album hadn't even been
released in the US by November 14, 1970.

Yes did not play the Amphitheatre on this date.
They did play the Chicago Auditorium Theatre
on November 14, 1970.
This was their 1st official American tour.
They played 2 shows that night and YES was the
opening act for Emerson, Lake and Palmer who were touring
in support of their TARKUS LP.
The 10:00 PM show started 2 hours late and
ended at approximately 3:00 AM.
I have ticket stub from this show.

ELP was on the bill that night.

Jon Anderson:
Thank you.

Jon Anderson:
This is 'Yours Is No Disgrace'

Jon Anderson:
Thank you. Goodnight

Steve Howe:
Thank you very much.