Wakeman and Son (Rick and Oliver Wakeman) Tupelo Music Hall, Derry, NH 3/15/2026
Tonight we saw Rick Wakeman and his son Oliver in Derry, NH. This show was originally scheduled for July of last year with vocalist Hayley Sanderson. We were traveling last July and were unable to attend. But the show had to be postponed due to Rick requiring surgery. Because of scheduling conflicts, Hayley couldn’t make the rescheduled dates, so Rick tapped his son Oliver to join him. We were available on the rescheduled date, and felt we had to go. We have seen Rick many times, and we have seen his son Adam. But we have never seen Oliver play live. Because the gig was rescheduled, most tickets had already been sold. We were able to pick up a pair near the back, so my photos aren’t good. But we thoroughly enjoyed the show.
Craig had ordered an autographed version of Rick's newest album, "Melancholia", online. When it arrived, there had been a mixup, and it wasn't signed. Craig wrote to the company and they were very apologetic and sent a replacement, but it got caught up in tariff nonsense and never made it to us. We brought our unsigned copy with us to the show, and Craig explained the situation to the merch guy. He asked if we had the disc with us, and asked if we had a Sharpie. (We did; we always come prepared, LOL). He promptly took it backstage, and had Rick sign it for us. He came back with it and said that Rick was also very apologetic. We were quite appreciative.
The show started with The Dance of a Thousand Lights. Rick walked onstage to backing music and then sat down at the piano to play along. He introduced Oliver, who then came out and played LJW at the piano. Both of them have played with Yes at different times, and they traded off songs from each of their tenures, and then both played together on "Roundabout". The suite consisted of "Awaken"/"And You and I"/"The Gift of Love"/"Wonderous Stories"/"Words on a Page"/"Roundabout". Next, father and son played together on keyboards for two tunes from the King Arthur album: "The Last Battle" and "Merlin the Magician". Next, Oliver played "November Wedding" on piano. For a tribute section of the show, they played keyboards together on "A Glimpse of Heaven" for the late Dave Cousins of the Strawbs. Both of them had played with the Strawbs at various points in time. Then Rick explained that he and his late father used to play "Sweet Georgia Brown" together, and now was his opportunity to play it with his son. Rick had arranged all of the pieces of "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" into a suite, which he performed solo on keyboards. Rick then explained that when he wrote "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", he wrote it as a suite with the themes from each of the songs. It is about 12 minutes long, and he played it on piano with Oliver on keyboards. For an encore, Rick played "Life on Mars?" on piano and dedicared it to David Bowie (Rick played on the record). Then Rick and Oliver played "The Jig" together on keyboards.
It was a great show, and it was lovely to see father and son playing together. They each have a great sense of humor, and told funny anecdotes in between songs.
Afterwards we got to say hello to Oliver. We asked for a selfie and told him we have photos with his dad and brother, and he said sure and joked that we’d have the whole family. It was a great night!
