Yes - Open The Gates - Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, NJ, USA - June 17th 1976 (PRRP 009) (VG AUD)

Artist: Yes
Title: Open The Gates
Date: June 17th 1976
Venue: Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, NJ, USA

Tracklisting
Disc One
01. WNEW / WMMB DJ's Introduction 01:22
02. Intro / Apocalypse 01:16
03. Siberian Khatru 09:15
04. Sound Chaser 11:03
05. I've Seen All Good People 07:18
06. Gates Of Delirium 22:18

Disc Two
01. Long Distance Runaround 02:17
02. Patrick Moraz Solo 04:14
03. Steve Howe Solo - Clap 03:39
04. Jon Anderson Solo - Excerpt From Olias 03:49
05. Heart Of The Sunrise 11:29
06. Ritual 25:47
07. DJ Chatter #1 01:28
08. Roundabout 08:36
09. DJ Chatter #2 01:28
10. I'm Down 03:29
11. DJ Outro 01:34

Personnel
Jon Anderson Vocals
Chris Squire Bass
Steve Howe Guitar
Alan White Drums
Patrick Moraz Keyboard

Warm up band: Pousette-Dart Band
Broadcast on WNEW radio Live

Liner Notes:

The 1976 Summer Tour began on May 28, 1976 in Roanoke, Virginia. The Roosevelt stadium concert was number 16 in a tour that would include 54 shows. The band members had recently finished solo projects and had reconvened to begin their biggest American concert tour to date. At the time there was still an enormous interest in the material from their most recent album Relayer. Gates of Delirium and Soundchaser, both from that album, were played in Jersey City that night.

From one that was there: “We were there in 6 inches of mud in '76 at Roosevelt stadium in New Jersey for RELAYER”. -Notes from the Edge

“Gates of Delirium is a war song, a battle scene, but it's not to explain war or denounce it, really. It's an emotional description with the slight feeling at the end of 'do we have to go through this forever?' There's a prelude, a change, a victory tune, and peace at the end, with hope for the future….” -Jon Anderson

“Sound Chaser is like this madman from hell…an indescribable mixture of Patrick's jazzy keyboards and my weird sort of flamenco electric, which I'm sure has never been done before and will probably never be done again!” -Steve Howe

Strangely enough, “To Be Over”, the last of the three songs from “Relayer” had been dropped from the set list for reasons unknown, perhaps to allow the band to include a few more of the old stage favorites like “Siberian Khatru” and “Heart of the Sunrise”.

“The concert was originally broadcast on WNEW from New York. According to former WNEW-FM DJ Richard Neer in his book, 'FM', there was no mixing of the show being done by the radio station engineers; the feed going out over the air was what the guy doing Yes' sound sent out. (This was because the manager of WNEW at the time was too cheap to pay Neer and a sound engineer companion of his the few hundred bucks extra they would have charged to do an on-the-fly broadcast mix). Hence the rather interesting variations in sound quality as the show progressed.” -Forgotten Yesterdays.com

Another enthusiastic fan recalled: “It was 100 degrees that day. When we finally got to the stadium, there was about a battalion of police off to one side. The line of fans was about 10 abreast and went around the stadium. The police had bullhorns and were telling people "no glass inside the stadium". When we got inside, there was a hot air balloon tethered over the stage, with the cover FROM TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS on it! The opening was the Poussette Dart band. Between the opening and Yes, there were fireworks. One of the rocket stands fell over during launch and a rocket shot across the infield and blew up under a car! Finally, true dark fell around 9:00 PM and Yes began to play. During the battle scenes in "Gates of Delirium", the laser (electric green, dark blue) was shot into the audience in random, staccato bursts. Later, during "Soon", the laser fanned out and spun over the audience, who craned up hands over their heads to touch the light. -Notes From The Edge.

It is with great pleasure that we now bring you this remaster of a legendary performance by a legendary band. Enjoy this great 1976 moment with Yes.

Notes from the Re-Master

Since the source for this concert is a radio broadcast, the sound quality is generally good to begin with. The actual source was a CD version of the master tapes obtained from the broadcasting radio station WNEW. We would like to thank Shaun Toole for providing this source to us.

Viable music signal was present up to 18,000 Hz. This is quite rare for progressive rock concerts available from the 1970's and makes this recording quite unique. A radio transmission or microphone / patch cord buzz occurred in the left channel off and on throughout the show and needed to be corrected. Fortunately, the buzz was specifically identified in the frequency spectrum and was surgically attacked. This approach produced a minimal effect on the remainder of the music. Pops and clicks occurred frequently and were manually removed. Radio announcer volume was out of proportion to the music in some segments and needed to be adjusted. Finally, only a slight amount of noise reduction was needed during quiet segments.