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Having left boarding school after the first year in the sixth form and now in my second year at West Norwood Tech, my whole life had changed - free of the rigid, inflexible restraints of boarding school and the rules and regulations that dominated my life - apart from a strict father, I was able to sample what a relatively normal life could offer. I had friends out of school and girlfriends, oh the pangs of a late first love! However, I felt like a fish out of water and struggled to fit in, I didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't take drugs - still never have, whilst this was happening all around me but I loved the music and the vibe, if that makes sense to anyone else.
Anyway going to see bands play was one of the things I loved to do and I had heard about this new band called Yes, who had just released their first album. My girlfriend at the time mentioned that they were going to be playing at Croydon Tech. and so we decided to go and see them. Anyone who knew Croydon Tech. would know how up close to the band you would have been.
Well, apart from Rory Gallagher of Taste's initial burst on his guitar at the Marquee, no live band ever made such an instant impact. I didn't know any of their music but right from the start they sounded absolutely brilliant, the whole set was brilliant, their sound so full, so lush, so commanding and so in control, you just knew immediately that this was a band that was going to be big. And so it happened. The only down side to this was that we had to leave early so that I could catch a train to get home.
Nevertheless, the impact of Yes had been made and I bought their album within a few days. It is such a great album, choc full of music, melody and full of interesting ideas, just listen to their version of the Beatles' 'Every Little Thing', apart from their own compositions, fabulous. And of course, there was the cover design and what a statement it made, a design of pure genius, simple and to the point - YES.
This was progressive music at its finest before prog changed it and of course Yes were instrumental in doing that but this is the album I 'd rather play than some of their later stuff. The later stuff might have produced a masterpiece of prog but this was a masterpiece of something else.
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