John Haggerty

Tuesday, June 8, 2021 4:37 PM

Yes at the Orpheum Theater with King Crimson...wow. I remember it, some 50 years after the fact. Hard to believe that many years have gone by. I remember little of the specifics of the evening, except Chris Squire with an outfit from the 17th century royal court dancing around an array of pedals for his bass guitar that was unlike anything I had ever witnessed before. And this was in the early days of synthesizers, so that was certainly different. What a pairing...King Crimson followed by Yes. The intellectual side of '70s rock!
John Haggerty
Braintree, MA (originally!)

your_host

Wednesday, September 13, 2017 1:01 PM

Bruford asks Fripp about joining Crimson. Fripp responds: "I think you're ready now, Bill." Bruford was 22 years old at the time.

Ed Whalen

I guess I was 17 when I went to see my two favorite bands, Yes and King Crimson, and here is is 32 years, 8 months and 18 days later and they still are my favorite. I'd like to say I remember everything about this show but I don't. I do remember that I was blown away by both bands because it was such a small venue. It seems to me that this show was at the Orpheum in Boston, maybe they called it the Aquarius for a time. I do remember, like it was yesterday, laying my hands on the Fragile album at Lechemere Sales in Cambridge, MA the first day it came out. Thank you Yes for so many years of beautiful music!

Yesman Lee

Melody Maker
April 15, 1972:

Yes and King Crimson strolled in after their Boston concert at the Aquarius Theatre, the last stop of a long American tour. Edgar Winter, whose band supported Joe Cocker at the Boston Garden that evening entered with his group and their retinue. Ostinsibly the gala affair honoured Yes, who received a gold record award for their million selling 'Fragile', but no sooner did they receive it than they disappeared to their hotel.

Yes is decidedly more 'pop' in their approach [though] the two groups share a similar musical foundation. A casual comparison between Yes' 'Heart of the Sunrise' and Crimson's '21st Century Schizoid Man' is revealing. The repeated staccato figure of the former is uncomfortably close to that of the latter.

Although Yes' Rick Wakeman didn't write 'Sunrise,' he sincerely believes that Jon Anderson and Chris Squire wrote it fresh. In any case the suggestion concerned him and he promised to examine it further. When asked his opinion, Fripp just smiled knowingly out of the top of his wire rim spectacles and said, 'What do you think?' 'As you know,' he continued, 'Yes started their band, their original band with Pete Banks and Tony Kaye, just as Crimson had established itself. Yes attended our first gig at the Speakeasy in '68. When they saw that we were playing exactly what they had set out to accomplish it blew their heads and they never actually recovered you see. Yes is a very good band, mind you. We had Jon Anderson sing on our 'Lizard' album and they asked me to perform on one of theirs but I declined.'

The internecine rivalry is actually good natured since both bands are 'firm friends' and are quick to pick up the cudgels for the other. 'That was a really fine set by King Crimson, wasn't it?' exclaimed Jon Anderson suddenly when Yes followed them on stage. 'They are truly a great band.'