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Tales from Topographic Oceans
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Mark and I had a great conversation with the legendary Michael Tait this week. Here is what the biography on his Mickey’s Black Box website says:
“Michael “Mickey” Tait landed in London from his native Australia in 1967. It was his third stop, after Hong Kong and Tehran, in what was meant to be a 3 month “Visit the Motherland” working vacation. His first job was bartending at the Speakeasy, a private club frequented by the who’s who of the music business. Rubbing shoulders with rock stars led to his second job: Road Manager for the newly formed progressive rock band YES.
During his 12 years on the road with YES he advanced the art of stage production and was a driving force in the new field of tour lighting.
He is credited with building the first pedalboard for guitar, the double Mellotron, the flat mirror ball, the 400-watt Leslie speaker box, and one of the first pin matrix lighting consoles. Next came self-contained lighting units consisting of genie lifts in large road cases with integral 4 cell par 64 lamps. These became known as “Tait Towers,” hence the name of his soon-to-be lighting rental company.
Perhaps one of his most important innovations was the portable rotating stage used by Yes in the 1970’s. Inspiration struck Tait while delivering a can of 35mm film to Morgan studios, where YES were recording. The concept, initially met with skepticism, was soon embraced as it gave everyone in the house a better view of the band and also increased the ticket gross dramatically.”
Despite recovering from COVID, Michael was generous and open about his recollections of working with Yes, particularly around the time of Tales from Topographic Oceans.
- Was the Tales Tour a turning point for the Yes live production?
- How did Michael get from Yes roadie/van driver to establishing the most successful live production company in the world?
- What about Jon’s bathroom at Morgan Studios?
Let us know if you agree with us!
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Check out the progress on my other podcast – https://anthem52.com/
Yes – The Tormato Story
Available now!
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Theme music
The music I use is the last movement of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. This has been used as introduction music at many Yes concerts. My theme music is not take from a live concert – I put it together from: archive.org
