Yes completed their Close to the Edge tour from July 1972 to April 1973 to support their fifth studio album, Close to the Edge (1972). The tour visited North America three times, the UK twice, and Japan and Australia for the first time. A selection of shows from 1972 from the Close to the Edge and the previous Fragile tours were recorded which formed much of the material on their first live album, Yessongs (1973).
Work on Progeny: Seven Shows from Seventy-Two began following the discovery of several multi-track reel-to-reel audio tapes containing seven full shows from the Close to the Edge tour, some being the source recordings of Yessongs. They were found during the search for bonus material to include on the remastered reissues of the band's back catalogue.
The seven shows were recorded during the second North American leg of the Close to the Edge tour. They are:
31 October 1972 Toronto, Ontario Canada Maple Leaf Gardens
1 November 1972 Ottawa, Ontario National Arts Centre
11 November 1972 Durham, North Carolina United States Cameron Indoor Stadium
12 November 1972 Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro Coliseum
14 November 1972 Athens, Georgia Georgia Coliseum
15 November 1972 Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville Civic Coliseum
20 November 1972 Uniondale, New York Nassau Coliseum
