Yes
Madison Square Garden
New York, NY
1974-02-20

Jon Anderson-lead vocals, percussion
Chris Squire-basses, vocals
Steve Howe-guitars, vocals
Rick Wakeman-keyboards
Alan White-drums, percussion

Source/lineage: Tooleman 2009 remaster of "low-gen audience recording" (see TooleMan notes below) > Audacity > FLAC (MP3 for comparison files)

1-The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn) 20:50
2-The Remembering (High the Memory) 22:28
3-The Ancient (Giants Under the Sun) 20:36
4-Ritual (Nous Sommes du Soleil) 21:48
comparison samples to 2009 version:
Revealing comparison
Remembering comparison
Ritual comparison

-------2026 Schwetje remaster notes----

After playing at Long Island New York's Nassau Coliseum on 2-14, Yes stayed in fairly close proximity to NYC for shows in New Haven and Philadelphia before playing 2 dates in NYC itself at Madison Square Garden less than a week later. Several versions circulate from captures at the first NYC date on 2-18. I'd actually attended that particular show, as well as the aforementioned Nassau Coliseum show. A TooleMan version of the 2-18 MSG show is particularly well regarded among folks who appreciate live Tales shows. The 2nd MSG show on 2-20 is not as well circulated, and it doesn't have the same cachet of the earlier MSG show, despite the fact that Shaun Toole also did a remaster of his 2003 work on that show in 2009 to coincide with its 35th anniversary.

I recently shared my 2026 tweaking (re-mastering?) of the TooleMan master of the complete 2-14 Long Island, NY Nassau Coliseum Tales show. That seemed to get a positive reception. Feeling that something good came out of that led me to listen to the 2-20 MSG 2009 remaster from Shaun Toole to see if tweaking that along the lines of what had been done for the 2-14 Nassau show might also yield a decent outcome. 2-20 from MSG didn't have the battery/speed issues that were still there on the Nassau show. The fidelity wasn't quite as good as Nassau had been. For this new work, EQ and Mastering tools from Audacity were applied to TooleMan's 2009 work to try to provide a bit more clarity and depth to the vocal parts, melodic lines, and rhythm section of Alan White and Chris Squire. Comparative samples included will show how this had sounded in the 2009 TooleMan remaster, and how it now sounds. That should make it fairly simple to determine whether this "tweaking" is worth the download.

According to the dimebot archive, no version of this 2-20 MSG show has run since 2014, so with the recent release of the Tales giant box on Rhino, some folks might have a bit more interest in this Yes tour and work again. This particular version of the MSG recording only centers on the Tales part of the show. Yes was still playing all 4 sides of the album in NYC, and this share actually allows for a focus on the "new" Tales release itself. In closing, all respect and gratitude once again to TheTooleMan for his excellent work with so many Yes shows. Thanks too to whoever managed to sometimes hit those sweet spots in recording Yes in these arena settings back in the day. Kudos too for their efforts and anxieties while successfully getting their equipment into these shows. Being in attendance at both Nassau Coliseum and Madison Square Garden inspired me to re-visit these particular venues and shows (although my MSG show was 2-18, not 2-20). That connection to those times and places during these Tales shows, and a love for that material led to dipping a toe into these Yes waters. Thanks again to those who've spent much more time in those waters (Topographic Oceans?), and done such nice work, which has been appreciated over so many years.

--------2009 TooleMan remaster notes---------

Celebrating the 35th anniversary of this concert.

Source: low-gen audience recording -> Sound Forge and Vegas -> FLAC

Dedicated to Jon Anderson and Chris Squire, the founding members of Yes, who are both ailing and off the road as of this writing.

This is a good recording - not as good as the Tales-only "YesSongs 2.1" tape of February 18, 1974, but much better than the full-concert recording of that date. I did some mastering work on this recording in 2003, but I changed the EQ a bit and corrected the pitch when I dusted it off yesterday. Overall, it's a good, solid recording, "B" quality, and not overly reverberant for a tape made in Madison Square Garden. It would probably get a lot more circulation if it wasn't for the much better recording from two days earlier.