Last night was great. Actually, last night was amazing.

Last night we went to see Yes live at Bristol Colston Hall, and it was, without a shadow of a doubt: awesome.

I have to confess to a certain amount of trepidation.  Rick Wakeman has more or less retired from touring, and had suggested his son Oliver Wakeman to take on keyboard duties. Jon Anderson had to pull out of the tour almost before it began due to health problems (He appears to be recovering now thankfully, and is doing a series of one-man acoustic shows now) but they ended up drafting in frontman from Yes tribute band Close to the Edge, Benoit David, who sounds uncannily like Jon (I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when he got that call: “Hi, Benoit, this is Chris Squire from Yes.  We’d like you to join the band”).

But I need not have worried. Oliver is a Wakeman and a Keyboard player, and stands surrounded by keyboards.  He even looks like his Dad!  Benoit, as I said sounds uncannily like Jon.

And they all flat out rocked.

If you get the chance to, go and see this show.  They played stuff from many parts of the canon, including two tracks from the only non-Anderson non-Wakeman album, Drama. Stand-out moments were And You and I, Heart of the Sunrise, and the Encore, Starship Trooper. Oliver’s rig was similar in scale to his Dad’s Yes rig – 8 keyboards in a U around him.  And we sat 5 rows back, right in line with the Keys.

Now as you probably know, Yes are one of my major influences, and seeing them live last night has inspired me to push the Fantasy Bridge project even harder, to redouble my efforts to create an album that does justice to the prog genre.

On with the work!