Bill Griffin

I was only 13 years old when I had the experience of seeing Yes in the round at the Winnipeg Arena. At the time I was hanging out with a group of friends whose older brothers were musicians. Yes was considered a cool and sophisticated band by these folks so on their advice myself and my friends scored tickets to the Yesshow.

The tickets we had turned out to be outstanding. They were directly behind the home team players bench. With the stage being placed roughly at centre ice we were no more than about 30 feet away. About 10 minutes before the show started one of the older musician brothers appeared and told me he would be sharing my seat with me as I had a prime location, much better than his. Indeed we shared one seat throughout the show.

My memories of the concert are sadly rather scetchy, although it left enough of a lasting impression on me that I am a huge Yes fan to this day. I remember things like the deafening roar that greeted the band as they walked through an opening in the floor seating to the stage at the start of the show. Jon was dressed in a fairy-type outfit with a sash around his waist. Rick was wearing his silver superman outfit complete with cape. I recall Rick looking down into the front row during Roundabout and spying two very rotund women dancing. This caused Rick to crack up so bad that he had to stop playing briefly. Chris, ever the showman, would hold his arm outstretched between songs and let his bass freefall toward the floor only to have that mysterious hand appear from the floor and catch it and drag it below.

I was only 13 in 1979 and am 34 now. Having remained a loyal Yes fan on the prairies of Canada for some 20 years it has always been a secret hope that I would get the chance to see a decent incarnation of the band again.