Rick Wakeman
Kent State
by Andrew Latshaw
Tonight, at Kent Stage, something rarer than nostalgia takes the stage. This is not merely a concert. It’s a living archive of progressive rock’s DNA, performed by its architects, reassembled in real time.
I have to say that I was not at all clear what to expect this evening. When I saw the legend that is Rick Wakeman walk out at the Kent Stage, you could feel the weight of time in his steps. He moved slowly, his weathered orthopedics not quite taking full strides as he crossed the stage. He said nothing, barely acknowledged the crowd, offered a small wave, and settled at the piano… and that is when the magic began.
Rick Wakeman does not so much play keyboards as he conjures them. Caped in legend and armed with an arsenal of 88 ivory keys that look like they were salvaged from a time-traveling cathedral, he has spent decades turning classical structure into rock spectacle. But tonight’s performance, shared with his son Oliver Wakeman, trades bombast for something more intimate… and, somehow, more powerful.
This is generational alchemy.
The Wakeman legacy has always been tied to grandeur. From The Six Wives of Henry VIII to the gilded excess of Yes in their prime, Rick built entire sonic kingdoms. But tonight, stripped of the usual symphonic scaffolding, those compositions breathe differently. The absence of excess becomes its own kind of luxury.
Oliver, long in the shadow of a titan, emerges not as an echo, but as a counterpoint. Where Rick is theatrical and unpredictable, Oliver is measured, deliberate… a stabilizing force that turns chaos into conversation. Together, they don’t just perform songs, they interrogate them. Themes are stretched, refracted, reshaped mid-flight. A melody that once marched now floats. A flourish that once dazzled now haunts.
There’s a moment, somewhere in the set, where time seems to fold in on itself. Rick leans into a passage that feels pulled straight from the golden age of prog… and Oliver answers, not by mimicking, but by evolving it. It’s not a duet. It’s a dialogue between eras.
And the audience? Not passive observers, but witnesses. You can feel it ripple through the room… that quiet, collective realization that this is fleeting. That you are hearing something that cannot be replicated, only remembered.
At times, I found myself more captivated by the faces in the crowd than the metamorphosis unfolding just beyond my peripheral vision. There were men and women so emotionally invested in this performance that it became its own kind of spectacle.
One woman, in particular, sat frozen… mouth slightly open, hands trembling as they hovered near her face. Tears welled in her eyes, as if she had just arrived at a destination decades in the making.
In a world of backing tracks and algorithmic perfection, the Wakemans offer something gloriously human: risk. Notes hang in the air just a fraction longer than expected. Transitions teeter, then resolve. It’s imperfect in the way that makes it transcendent.
By the time the final chord dissolves into the rafters of Kent Stage, you’re left with the sense that you didn’t just attend a performance… you experienced a lineage.
A father. A son. A legacy, not preserved, but alive.
And for one night in Kent, Ohio, progressive rock didn’t look back.
It looked forward.
I had planned to end my review there… but there’s one moment I can’t leave behind.
It wasn’t just the music that stayed with me… it was the connection. The quiet, unmistakable love between Rick and Oliver, and the way that love was reflected back by the audience.
Watching Rick introduce his son, recalling being on tour with Yes when Oliver was born… then hearing Oliver respond with stories of carving his own path under the weight of that legacy… it felt complete.
As someone who reflects often on my own relationship with my father, I can say without hesitation… it was beautiful.
The show lasted just over an hour and a half… yet somehow contained a lifetime.
