{"id":403627,"date":"2026-07-18T17:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T17:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/403627\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T17:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T17:03:08","slug":"50-years-ago-today-yes-peter-frampton-spark-a-riot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/403627\/","title":{"rendered":"50 Years Ago Today: Yes, Peter Frampton Spark a Riot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn the bicentennial summer of 1976, a record number of major rock acts hit the arena\/stadium circuit across North America, including Paul McCartney and Wings, the Who, Elton John, Kiss, the Beach Boys, the Band, the Stills-Young Band, Yes<\/a>, Peter Frampton<\/a>, and Genesis. These were often part of multi-artist bills that ran for well over six hours, starting long before the sun set.<\/p>\n

\n\tInevitably, they didn\u2019t all go over very well. \u201cIt is obvious that this is not the Big Bicentennial Bonanza that was anticipated,\u201d syndicated newspaper columnist Lisa Robinson wrote in her Rock Talk column. \u201cTalk to any rock star, and you\u2019ll immediately become engaged in The Discussion: Why the huge, outdoor stadium shows don\u2019t necessarily work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tElton John broke it down for her. \u201cI think this is the last year for those kind of shows,\u201d he said. \u201cAny promoter will tell you that these shows aren\u2019t doing such good business. The kids don\u2019t get a good view. They have to sit there all day in the sweltering heat. If they want to go to the bathroom or get something to drink it\u2019s a drag. And to see the act they like, they have to sit for hours watching bands they really didn\u2019t come to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne tour that had little trouble selling tickets, however, was a co-headlining bill of Yes and Peter Frampton at stadiums in June and July. This was the red hot peak of Frampton mania when Frampton Comes Alive! was the Number One album on the Billboard 200, by a long shot, and it was impossible to turn on the radio without hearing \u201cBaby, I Love Your Way,\u201d \u201cShow Me the Way,\u201d or \u201cDo You Feel Like We Do.\u201d The music industry hadn\u2019t seen anything quite like it since Beatlemania.<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, meanwhile, hadn\u2019t released a new LP since 1974\u2019s Relayer, and they\u2019d been off the road for a year. Singer Jon Anderson, guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Chris Squire, and drummer Alan White all spent the downtime cutting solo albums. But they regrouped in May 1976 for an extensive North American arena tour with opening act the Pousette-Dart Band. And when Frampton joined the bill in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Anaheim, California, San Diego, and Cicero, Illinois, the show moved into stadiums or, in the case of Cicero, a race track.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tour was informally billed as the Solo Album Tour, which is very misleading since the set was nothing but Yes classics like \u201cRoundabout,\u201d \u201cHeart of the Sunrise,\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve Seen All Good People,\u201d and \u201cLong Distance Runaround.\u201d \u201cAt the time we decided to get into this tour,\u201d White told The Anaheim Bulletin on July 23, 1976, \u201cwe decided to play all the songs that the people wanted to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tour hit San Diego\u2019s Balboa Stadium exactly 50 years ago<\/a> on July 18, 1976, with Gary \u201cDream Weaver\u201d Wright and Gentle Giant opening up. Tickets were $9.50 in advance, but you had to cough up $11.00 on the day of the show. \u201cEnjoy an exciting show you can see and hear outdoors in the grass, festival seating,\u201d read an ad in the paper, \u201cwith all the comforts of an outdoor concert. Plenty of concessions, parking and restrooms \u2014 attendance limited to 35,000 for your comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPeter Frampton alone could have easily sold 35,000 tickets in 1976. Throw in Yes, Gentle Giant, and Gary Wright on a weekend night in July near a college, and you have a recipe for chaos. Which is exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNinety persons were arrested Sunday as police sought to maintain order at a concert which attracted 4,500 more persons than could be admitted to the 35,000 capacity Balboa Stadium,\u201d read a UPI report the morning after the show. \u201cPolice said most of those arrested were young adults, and they were charged mostly for drunkenness, drug use, resisting arrest and trespassing\u2026 Milling crowds broke down fences, and caused damage on the campuses of San Diego High School and City College, both adjoining the stadium. A first-aid trailer at the stadium treated 100 persons for injuries. An unknown number of people were taken to hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tAn inadvertently hilarious dispatch from CBS 8 San Diego (available on YouTube) shows cops in riot gear battling crazed teenagers outside, desperate to get in. Every single fan looks like an extra from Dazed and Confused or That \u201970s Show. If you watch the footage on mute, parts look genuinely like the Attica prison riot.<\/p>\n

\n\tSadly, there\u2019s not even a glimpse of Gary Wright, Peter Frampton, or Yes in the news footage. But we do see a few seconds of Gentle Giant performing \u201cKnots\u201d from their 1972 album Octopus.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is Super 8 footage of Wright\u2019s set that looks like it was filmed by Abraham Zapruder. There\u2019s also 12 minutes of Peter Frampton\u2019s set captured on film, and six minutes of Yes, including bits of \u201cSound Chaser,\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve Seen All Good People,\u201d and \u201cThe Gates of Delirium.\u201d A bootlegger also walked out with a clean tape of the entire set, which has circulated for decades. The highlight is a final encore of \u201cI\u2019m Down\u201d by the Beatles, one of just 15 known times they\u2019ve played it.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Yes tour wrapped a month later with a gig in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that marked keyboardist Patrick Moraz\u2019s final show in the band. Rick Wakeman rejoined during the Going for the One sessions later that year. Moraz moved on to the Moody Blues in 1978 and stuck around until 1991, when his acrimonious departure led to a legal battle with his former bandmates that played out on Court TV.<\/a> Today, Moraz and Justin Hayward are the only living members of the Moody Blues. (Relations between them are so frosty that Hayward didn\u2019t even know Moraz was still alive when we spoke to him last year.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tYes has also gone through quite a few changes over the years. Today, Howe is the only member from the classic-era lineup still in the band. But they continue to tour and record quite regularly. Last year, they took a page from the 1976 San Diego playbook by playing a Beatles song near the end of the night. This time around, it was \u201cThe Word.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLike Yes, Balboa Stadium is almost unrecognizable today when compared to its 1976 self. The original venue was torn down a few years after the Yes\/Frampton show, and replaced with a much smaller stadium that seats just 3,000 people. If Yes and Frampton ever wanted to return and share the bill again, they\u2019d probably fill it. This time around, the police would likely be able to leave their riot gear at the precinct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the bicentennial summer of 1976, a record number of major rock acts hit the arena\/stadium circuit across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[161917,16304,161918,74,76,75,161919],"class_list":["post-403627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-50-years-ago","tag-flashback","tag-peter-frampton","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-yes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}