Edward Mansfield

I was at the Oslo concert on 11/11, 1977 (21 years ago this week, I can hardly believe it). The venue was the Ekeberg Hallen in Oslo, lineup was the same as for the rest of the tour, of course (Jon, Steve, Chris, Alan and Rick). Can't remember the set list exactly but I believe it was similar to the Gothenburg gig the following night. I do remember "Turn Of the Century" distinctly, which has always been my favourite Yes song - maybe not their best (Awaken would be my pick for that one), but definitely the most lyrical, with that superb build-up from the acoustic intro to the full-blown instrumental middle section and then the gentle let down at the end - marvelous! That concert was without doubt the best live concert I've ever seen, by several orders of magnitude. The visuals were amazing, from the stage set design to the laser light show, which was the best example of that genre that I ever saw - tastefully used without overdoing it (as Genesis tended to do during the same period).

One little tidbit of interest: during his solo spot Rick played the theme from Grieg's Peer Gynt suite, much to the delight of Grieg's hometown crowd (well, actually he came from Bergen not Oslo, but home country anyway).

One other item of interest: this was the first time Yes had performed in Norway (well, actually the second as they did a club gig there supporting the Edgar Broughton Band back in the early days). Donovan was the warm-up act, in one of his electric phases, and he had a much higher mainstream profile than our heroes at the time. The concert reviewer in Aftenposten, Norways leading daily newspaper, led off with words to the effect that he couldn't understand why an artist of Donovan's stature would warm up for a relatively unknown act, but by five minutes into Yes's set it was patently obvious whose stage this really was, and he proceeded to write one of the most glowing reviews that I've ever read. This was in the days before the critics started tuning out!