Well, as you might have guessed, we had a bit of a party to celebrate the launch of the CD.

And played some tunes.

It was a hot June evening, and everyone seemed to be in a mood to party.  It was great to catch up with so many friends from all over the place.

You can see some photos from the event by clicking here. As more pics come in from the various people who were snapping away, I’ll add them to the album.

I have to say DBs Weston did us proud with the PA rig and the lighting.  On the whole, I have to say it was a brilliant night. Notwithstanding the problems I had with the mainstage rig and the monitors.  We got through the first half with half my keyboard sounds missing, but it didn’t matter.  We just had a great time.

The set list was as follows

• Fantasy Bridge
• Together on the Shores of Time
• Autumn Rain
• Endless Ocean
• Quiescence
• Don’t Give up on Love
• Ode to Joy (encore)

I would like to thank Daren from DBs, Sue for all the help in organising it, and putting up with me in the run-up to the party, and of course Adam, Brendan and Paul for helping create the Fantasy Bridge live sound.

We had a first full rehearsal of the Fantasy Bridge live band, and Sue and I both thought that one element that wasn’t translating well, was the vocals. As you might have gathered the album features quite a lot of vocal harmonies, and it was clear that I needed to do something to try and replicate this live.

Technology to the rescue! Boss, the effects pedal company, and part of Roland make this little beastie called the VE-2o Vocal Performer.  Among it’s party tricks, it can add reverb, delay, compression, vocal enhancements, effects, like flanger and distortion, and of particular interest to me, harmonies!

You tell it what key you are in, what the intervals you want are, and then sing…

Suddenly there are three of you on the stage singing perfect harmonies. Well, if you are singing in tune there are!. It can also do a rather nice double and 3x vocal stack effect which is great too.

Once again I have to give a big thank-you to Ian, the Roland guy at PMT Bristol for his patience, product knowledge and the great demo of the little red beastie.

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!