![]()
Tuesday, February 26, 1974 Boston, Massachusetts Boston Garden 15,000 capacity 48 years, 11 months and 9 days ago
|
Tom Bonner I first saw Yes at the old Boston Garden in 1974. Despite things being a bit foggy and diffuse (those who lived in those days know what I mean) I recall an almost out of body experience seeing Yes that night. The stage shows in those days were legendary for good reason. The band enjoyed mythic popularity and presented a show that was state of the art in both production values and musical virtuosity. The stage was set with elaborate Roger Dean designed props with ethereal lighting that created a motif that put the band and listener on the other world planet pictured on the Yessongs album. The sound system had 35 foot towers of speakers powered by mountains of amplifiers ( robust Crown DC-300As I believe). They also had true discrete 4 channel sound with towers of left and right rear channel speakers for what was called Quadrophonic sound at the time. It sounded like Rick Wakeman had joystick control over the sound as he sent streams of mellotron heaven swirling from back to front and side to side. I have never seen this attempted on such a large scale at any touring show. This was truly visionary 35 years ago and destined to evolve into today's 5.1 channel sound systems. As an audio junkie, I wanted to give Yes credit for putting in the effort and cost for this incredibly ambitious milestone. That show easily out performed ( in presentation, musical content and sound quality) the Emerson, Lake and Palmer tour of 1976 I saw that touted a record for needing 40 trailers to transport gear from venue to venue. Even the Grateful Dead would have been jealous of Yes' audio system and stage show. I have since been to 12 Yes shows mostly around New England in the 70's and 80's with less ambitious staging, but no less musical acumen. Musical integrity has always been a hallmark of Yes concerts. I applaud Rick Wakeman's statement to uphold the musical legacy of the band. However, we loyal Yes fans need our fix and I am very grateful the band does not withhold the love for a future time that may never arrive.
before 'And You And I' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Thank you, very, very, very much and thank you for being so patience. [???] All the [???] players too. [???] It's real nice to be back in Boston, playing for you again. We'd like to carry on with a song called 'And You And I'. before 'Close To The Edge' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Thank you very much, thank you. I'd like to thank you all for coming along tonight too. We'd like to carry on with the title track from that album. It's called 'Close To The Edge'. before 'Revealing Science Of God, The' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Thank you very much, thank you. We hope, we hope the [???] will help you stay with us because we'd like to present our new album to you. The album is called 'Tales From Topographic Oceans'. It's in four parts. It's music based loosely on the four Sanskrit scriptures. Sanskrit is the ancient Chinese language in which every language came. The first side is titled 'The Revealing Science Of God'. I hope you like it. before 'Remembering, The' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Thank you, thank you very much. You'll play everything later. We're just going to play some music and just going to play whatever you want to afterwards, really. Side two is titled 'The Remembering'. [???]..uh What seems clear is..uh we based our actions of the last three-thousand years. Our development the last three-thousand years. Man has been on this planet ten of thousands of years. That's interesting. 'The Remembering', the last three-thousand years. before 'Ancient, The' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:..as under the sun. The ancient civilizations correctly believed that the sun was god. before 'Ritual' transcribed by: Pete Whipple Jon Anderson:Thank you. Side four is titled 'The Ritual'. The ritual of life. Nous Sommes Du Soleil. |