Yes - The Ohio Runaround (2023)

DYNAMIC 1978 BROADCAST RECORDING FROM YES s 1978 TORMATO TOUR Formed in London in 1968 by singer Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, guitarist Peter Banks, keyboardist Tony Kaye, and drummer Bill Burford, Yes has undergone numerous formations throughout its history; nineteen musicians have been full-time members. Yes began performing original songs and rearranged covers of rock, pop, blues and jazz songs, as evident on their first two albums. A change of direction in 1970 led to a series of successful progressive rock albums until their disbanding in 1981, their most successful being The Yes Album (1971), Fragile (1971) and Close to the Edge (1972). Yes toured as a major rock act that earned the band a reputation for their elaborate stage sets, light displays, and album covers. In September 1978, Tormato was released at the height of punk rock in England, during which the music press criticised Yes as representing the bloated excesses of early-1970s progressive rock. The album saw the band continuing their movement towards shorter songs however; no track runs longer than eight minutes! With heavy commercial rock-radio airplay, the album reached number 8 in the UK and number 10 in the US charts, and was also certified platinum (1 million copies sold) by the RIAA. Despite some internal and external criticisms of the album, the band's 1978 1979 tour was a huge commercial success. Concerts were performed in the round with a £50,000-central revolving stage and a 360-degree sound system fitted above it. Their dates at Madison Square Gardens earned Yes a Golden Ticket Award for grossing over $1 million in box office receipts. The tour began in Rochester, New York, about a month before the album was released, and it slowly worked its way across the US. Returning to the UK in October for six nights at Wembley Stadium, they quickly returned to North America where they continued to tour until June 1979. Among the tour s very finest shows was the band s concert at Richfield, Ohio - equidistant between Cleveland and Akron - at the city s Coliseum, which was recorded for live FM Radio Broadcast across the state and its surrounds. Previously unreleased, and from a tour not represented by any previous concert albums (save for a few stray cuts that made their way onto 1980s Yesshows), this new release, which features their entire Richfield show across 2CDs, will surely become an essential purchase for the millions of Yes fans still flying the flag for this most exciting and reliable of rock groups.