Claus Mayer

I remember this concert quite well, because it was a chaotic one:

too many tickets were sold and the location was totally overcrowded. doors and windows were smashed and people were falling over each other in the entry area. All doors were opened and even the people without a ticket could get in which made the situation more uncomfortable. i have a newspaper article that states that the allowed limit of people was 4375 but at the end more than 6000 were in and I think even 4000 were too much for this venue. Nevertheless the show was quite good and after the lights went on the people left the place, but suddenly Yes came back to play 'Yours is no disgrace' and lot of the people rushed again into the hall. If this is not on the bootleg recording, maybe the guy had left the concert too early.

Ken Simpson

In 77 I was fortunate to See the Dec 1 show in Esslingen. It was a smaller venue (about 2000 seats) and the band used a quad sound system. I have my ticket stub and it is absolutely beautiful!!! About 3 inched wide and 8 inches long with the album (GFTO) printed.

[Eberhard-Bauer-Halle] was a smallish Gymnasium with permanent bleachers on one side and nothing on the otherside of the floor. The bleachers were in two levels. My estimate of 2000 might be overdoing it a bit.

[The ticket stub] Actually, there is a list of the YES albums with catalog numbers. Another cool thing about the ticket is that the YES logo is raised 3-DO.

Now a little about the show...I was able to get fairly close to the stage without getting too close because I took my camera and didn't want to be crowded out from taking pictures of the overall stage. I took a couple of rolls of slides and still have them packed away.

As I remember, the show was almost overpowering because of the intimacy. Without trying to be too specific a couple of the truly outstanding moments were Steve's pedal steel work on Going For The One and the mood that Rick set with Turn Of The Century. The interplay between Racks' Mellotron and Jon's harp was entrancing! The really awesome highlights was the Triple-neck bass that Chris played during Awaken. It still floors me to see him whirling around with this huge instrument land acting like it was just NORMAL. The shows' encore was Roundabout and then we were able to call the band back for a rousing version of Starship Trooper.