49 years, 10 months and 17 days ago Sunday, November 24, 1974 Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro Coliseum 21,487 capacity
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Mark Welsh Saturday, December 21, 2019 8:38 PM 2nd Yes concert and worth it alone just for hearing Close To The Edge live for the first time. I think this was the only time I saw them with Moraz, although I saw him in the 1980's with the Moody Blues, so he got around. DE Wilson This was my first YES show and with a couple of exceptions in my 30 + years of concert-going, still a pinicle moment for me. Unfortunatly, my memories of the show are not complete due to some interaction with shall we say some "illicit" substances but I continued to see YES in G'boro through my high school years and grew to be the fan I am. \ "To Be Over" was absolulty beautiful and "Gates" was just too much to truly take in in one sitting, the template song for the "co-ordinated chaos" arranging that make this band constantly amazing. Although I feel that Wakeman is the "true" keyboardist for the band, Relayer is my favorite studio album and I am happy to say that I was able to see Moraz with YES and saw him later on with Bruford during their "Piano and Drums" tour. Edward Kyle Gryphon opened for the band, I remember Brian Guilland and the rest got a tremendous ovation . Their final song was a sailor's hornpipe that sped up to tripple time. After a really long wait, Yes came on and opened with "Sound Chaser", which we were not yet much familiar with. Ye Gods! It was bracing and disorienting. A very trippy show. I was much impressed with Dean's set design, especially the reworked TO drape at the rear of the stage. Moraz was wonderful to hear, very jazzy. When the band played "Gates of Delirium", during the battle section Moraz banged away at these slinkies hung from his baby grand. They were cut at different lengths and there were pickups on the ends of them. He hit them with a metal wand. They made a clashing sound, like armor and swords being bashed about. I went to this show with a high school chum who later became infamous as Mojo Nixon (who penned and sang the '80's anthem "Elvis is Everywhere") and that he discovered that we were sitting just in front of none other than Wavy Gravy, hero of Woodstock and co-founder of the Hog Farm Commune. We shared the bag supper (which we were allowed to take into the colliseum) with Wavy and also with the guys from Gryphon who came out into the audience to watch Yes. When my girlfriend said to them that she thought that they might have blown Yes off the stage with their meaty set, they said, "No, Yes are the best. They are like our heroes." Before the show, I watched Jon loading dry ice into the machines behind the stage. He was obviously road weary but when I asked him to smile for a photo, he stuck his fingers into the corners of his mouth and made a smile through the V of his fingers. Then he came over and signed autographs. |