Before Yes appeared, images of a couple of dozen album covers, ticket stubs, stadium crowds and the like appeared on the small screen. A fanfare for these uncommon men who have well over a century of collective experience as Yes.
Judging by the number who leaped to their feet to applaud when they walked on, and again after a number of their lengthy passages, this wasn't a concert for those lacking interest or merely curious. This was a gathering of the faithful.
It was an intelligently programmed set which opened with Close, an album that leads to a thoroughly rocking finale on Siberian Khatru after numerous sublime moments and some rather musicianly but dull 10-minute passages between.
But that thrilling finale set up two numbers from their new album Heaven and Earth by recently recruited singer Jon Davison who has a keen ear for an economic pop-rock song: Believe Again and The Game were terrific (they were coherent songs) and the latter even drew a dancer into the aisles.
Then it was down to Fragile business, an album from when they were more rock than prog and less consciously uncoupling from blues and hard rock.
The musicianship is never in dispute: founder/bassist Chris Squire holds down earth-shaking runs and rare singing tones; guitarist Steve Howe effortless shifts from driving chords to arpeggios repeated with minimalist perfection; keyboard player Geoff Downes commands a battery of black'n'whites for funky organ sounds or liturgical music (often within a few bars) and longtime drummer Alan White is an intense and accurate, if largely invisible, presence.
Davison has a similarly high voice to original vocalist Jon Anderson although more dry in places and forcing a falsetto.
Viewed from another perspective it was all faintly absurd too: Davison in striped pants repeatedly adopted a risen-Christ poses with arms stretched to heavens and seemed more like an actor in Godspell; there are faux-spiritual lyrics about sunrises, dreamers, mountains and rivers; Howe (who has Gandalf's hair) sometimes looked like a surprised mouse when pulling out blistering runs or deft solos of beautiful dexterity, and the psychedelic images and such on the small backdrop seemed like downsizing a cinema screen to a laptop.
It was also - aside from Davison's beaming presence - rather joyless and workmanlike.
But that view won't be shared by loyalists who got an increasingly exciting concert and responded in kind, many offering a standing ovation.
And at the end of the encore - their pop-rock hits Your Move ('71) and Owner of a Lonely Heart ('83) - I too leaped to my feet immediately.
