Jon Anderson remembers YES’ JFK Philadelphia show with Peter Frampton, Gary Wright

Jon Anderson will be coming to Ocean City Music Pier on August 9th with The Paul Green Rock Academy. These young musicians range in age from 10-18 and are amazing. But there was another show that I remember that I remember seeing Anderson and Yes playing at that was one of the best shows I'd ever seen.

The date was June 12, 1976. The place was JFK Stadium in Philadelphia which has since been torn down, and the lineup was YES, Peter Frampton, and Gary Wright. I was working at Great Adventure at the time and had gone with a bunch of friends/coworkers. We camped out all night and when the doors opened up at 8am we were part of the crowd that stormed the field and set up camp on the field about 8 rows back on the stage.

The temperature was so hot that they were turning fire hoses on the crowd to cool us off. The crowd numbered over 120K. Peter Frampton remembers

Jon Anderson also remembered and told this story when we spoke on New Jersey 101.5

"Philadelphia became our second home," says Anderson "Coming to perform in Philadelphia had a special sort of energy. and doing that show, I remember it vividly because we had all these laser beams you see and we were doing "Gates of Delerium" of all things to play in front of a hundred thousand people and the fire marshal came and said "Ok, that's not going to be used, you can't use that" The laser beams are in the same path as the flying planes coming over"

Anderson continues; "Everybody in the band looked at me and said what do we do?" I said "It's Ok don't worry" Anderson addressed the fire marshall "It's Ok yes sir no problem" so the fire marshall went and then Anderson said "Turn on those laser beams it's rock n roll!

And from being there I can tell you. It absolutely was!

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Steve Trevelise. Any opinions expressed are Steve's own. Steve Trevelise is on New Jersey 101.5 Monday-Thursday from 7pm-11pm. Follow him on Twitter @realstevetrev.

teven Tyler Year-by-Year Photos: 1973-2020