SVG

Thursday, June 18, 2026 8:34 PM

The mention of Felix flipping off the crowd and yelling an obscenity brings back memories. I had hitchhiked from Glendale to Bakersfield the day before only to find the show cancelled. I slept in the bushes at the Bakersfield High School and got my money refunded first thing in the morning. Then I hitchhiked up to Fresno, got there around noon, bought a ticket, and waited in line with a bunch of others for the next 6 hours. I had brought a large cardboard YES sign that I had spray painted white, to light blue, to dark blue, about 3 1/2 feet wide.

Around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, we heard the band warming up, so a bunch of us went around the building and found a door open to cool down the place. About 8 of us went in and got seats high up in the bleachers and sat down to listen. The music was not familiar to us, must've been something from the next album. We got kicked out of there by staff, claiming that they couldn't have us there because "insurance".

When the doors opened, we were told not to run, but of course we did. The whole crew that I hung out with all afternoon got something like 2nd or 3rd row center seats.

We were pretty bummed by Felix opening the show. Total mismatch in our humble opinions... The guy next to me was really sh*t-talking Felix between each song, yelling for him to get off the stage. The flipping the bird and the obscenity was aimed at this guy directly. At that moment, I felt kinda bad for Felix.

The lasers were a very new thing in the concert arena, none of us had seen them before... and none of us knew how dangerous they were if they were directed into your eyes. At one point, the smoke machines and lasers were doing their thing, the lasers pointed just over the heads of those of us in the front rows. I remember standing up on my chair to 'catch' some of the laser light in my hands.

And then came 'In the Midnight Hour'. I was stunned by how different in feel the song was in YES's hands. They only performed it about once a year for a few years, so we really lucked out.

At the end of the concert, I went to someone's house, they offered me a sleeping place in their van while they had a room inside. The next morning I hitchhiked back to Glendale.

Before the show, and after we all got our seats sorted, we were milling about in the upper seats overlooking the backstage area. I saw Jon walking up towards the stage at one point and I shouted his name. He looked up and I flashed the large YES sign that I had brought with me. He had a look of delight in his eyes and smiled up at me.

The YES sign was cut out of a cardboard stencil that I used to paint directly onto the side of the Glendale High School gym wall. I had to rappel down from the roof and tape the stencil onto the wall. Aluminum undercoat, white to light blue to dark blue, then two different stencils to do the black outline. I had an amazing support team of four others. It took us from midnight to just around 5am to complete the artwork.

B. Thomas

It was Felix Pappalardi and Creation that opened the show.

Dave

Yes did this show with solos that had before mainly been done with with Steve and Rick. This time all the members did a solo Patrick Moras did some classical sounding things. Jon played Olias of Sun Willow songs for his solos. This was the first time I saw him play his bell harp on stage. A great show!

Greg Ruiz

On August 2nd, 1976, my friend Blake Thomas and I drove up to Bakersfield CA, from Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley region of LA .to refund our tickets for Yes because the venue's ceiling was too "low" for the "Crab Nebula" set that Roger and Martyn Dean created for the tour. Blake and I arrived in Fresno the day before the show to meet Roger Meyers, and brothers Jim and Art Hazelwood. As we had some time to kill, Roger and Art drove to a nearby store and purchased "dinner'' and "sign" supplies. As Art H.took a shot at a "Roger Dean" style lettered sign for the band to see, I offered to help, and drew the "Midnight Hour" sign in a few minutes. I'm an artist with lettering expertise, in the "Dean-Yes-style". The sign was folded in quarters and carried by Blake, who quickly found two center-second row seats,and held the sign up during Heart of the Sunrise. After Jon's solo, the band returned to play a brief bit of "In the Midnight Hour". Directly after, Jon thanked Clair Bros. Sound - etc. before Ritual. To Correct the Bill Wolfe version further, Roger, Jim and Art sat in the 10th row not shouting at all, that happened in '77 with another group wearing the same "Midnight Hour - T-shirts", and once again Yes

Bill Wolfe

I'm sure many people were surprised (even shocked) to hear Yes play a snippet of "In the Midnight Hour" during the encore. My high school friends, Roger Meyers and Jim Hazelwood, had driven up to Fresno from Encino in the San Fernando Valley region of L.A., being total Yes fanatics. Roger had read in Melody Maker or NME that "Midnight Hour" was one of Jon's favorite old soul/R&B songs or that it was one of the first songs the original members played during initial rehearsals in the late 60's. Roger and Jim made a big sign with the song title on it and shouted "Midnight Hour" repeatedly from their close-in floor seats until, to their utter amazement, their wish came true. I assure you this is the truth behind this obscure occurrence.

Nic Caciappo

I saw this Fresno concert. The opening act was not actually "Mountain", it was "Felix Papalardi (sp?) & some band name". The audience was pretty hostile to Felix, probably because of the difference in style, and people were there to see Yes. People were tossing junk on the stage, especially when Felix introduced their "last song", which was announced "Johnny B. Goode". That got people really angry so Felix flipped his middle finger at the crowd and said something like "F!@# YOU!" and walked off stage, to loud applause of course. A great show it wasn't, except for the Yes set.....

Nlbke

This was the first Yes concert I attended and included the stage set with the "three headed monster" and a lot of laser effects. It was truly a spectacular visual production. Even though Yes music carries itself I was somewhat surprised at the subsequent concerts I attended that the stage productions were significantly toned down.

SVG

The opening band was Felix Papilliardi and Mountain

Nic Caciappo

[I] recall that when I was behind the stage at the Fresno California concert in 1976, during the soundcheck, Jon hadn't arrived yet. So the band was rehearsing without him. They played a long piece that I had never heard before. It reminded me of bits of Apocalypse by Mahavishnu. It was awesome. I have no doubt that this was probably 'Awaken'. I asked Steve about this once and he said that it was possible.