Two score years and several beers ago

 

As seen from the above souvenir program, today is the 40th anniversary of a concert appearance by Yes as a support act for headliner Elton John. If you can't quite make it out above, the souvenir program cost 15p; and in the print ad below, tickets for the show were £1.25 (pricey!) :

According to Chris Welch's book Close To The Edge: The Story Of Yes, Elton popped into the backstage hospitality tent before the show in search of "a naked man." Apparently no one associated with Yes at that time fit that description, so Elton moved on. He should have stuck around…about six more years:

So other than Elton going for the bum, why was this particular support appearance so notable in Yes history? The Garden Party II concert of July 31, 1971 was the very tail end of the (first) Kaye era. It wasn't long before the music papers were dishing out the poop about the (first) Wakeman era:

Although various musical reasons for dumping Tony Kaye were offered, Welch's own opinion was that Steve Howe simply didn't like sharing a room with Tony on tour! Not so much that Tony & Steve didn't get along musically… most likely it was the incessant wave of "loving" fans that Tony brought back to the room each night.

Years later, Tony would co-write a Yes song, perhaps about his earlier exploits in his & Steve's room, called "Rhythm Of Love."

Perhaps Steve has now offered his musical rebuttal in the song titled "Rumpy Bride"…? Cheeky bugger...

Going through Roger Dean's recycling bin

Here's a detail from Roger's cover art for the 2011 Yes album Fly From Here, with an overlay of a 2007 logo that he did for Nearfest.

Okay, yes, the tail is different...