Roll over Bearthoven: Rick Wakeman to perform concert for rescued animals

Prog keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman is to perform a concert for more than 150 “music-loving” rescued bears.

The 77-year-old former Yes musician will play a number of piano pieces specially written for bears at the Free The Final Bears Concert at Animals Asia’s bear sanctuary in Vietnam’s Tam Dao National Park, as he bids to raise awareness of 125 bears who are still trapped in bile farms in the country.

Wakeman – who has also performed with T Rex, David Bowie and Lou Reed – told the Press Association: “Bears do like music, I mean, all animals or most animals do respond to music, especially like classical music or melodic music.

“I don’t think they react too well to like the 1812 Overture or something like that, but they do react to gentle music, it’s calming, and bears are also very inquisitive.

Moon the bear, who Wakeman is currently a guardian of (Animals Asia)

“So I mean, obviously, the stage for the concert is not going to be actually in the sanctuary compound itself, it’ll be on the edge, so they’ll be able to come up and have a look and a listen.

“I do know that down there, the people at Animals Asia have been playing my piano music, pumping it out to them.

“So my only worry is that I’ll climb up onto the stage on the altar, and the inquisitive bears will come over and go, ‘oh, this is interesting’, and then I’ll start playing, and they’ll go, ‘oh no, it’s him again’.

“It’s first time I’ve done a concert (in Vietnam), when they asked, would I like to go down? I said, ‘I’d love to go down and do a concert in Vietnam’.

“They said, ‘okay, where?’, and I said, ‘not to humans’, they went, ‘what?’, I said, ‘no, no, this is to the bears, this is the concert for the bears, not for human beings’.

“So, I mean, I’ve played some quite amazing, and weird and wonderful places, and to some weird and wonderful audiences, but this is far and away, far and away the most unusual.”

Previous wacky Wakeman gigs include his 1975 performance of his album The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table on ice at Wembley Empire Pool, and he will perform a tribute to scientist Stephen Hawking in Spain later this year based on his teachings on black holes.

Wakeman is a guardian to a bear of his own called Moon, and was previously the guardian of another called Cyril Wolverine, who has now died and was named after the pianist’s late father.

The singer has written pieces about both bears, and also has a number written for another rescued bear named Rocky.

Wakeman’s former bear Cyril Wolverine (Animals Asia)

Wakeman became involved in the charity thanks to his friends, the actor Peter Egan and Downton Abbey’s Lesley Nicol, who will be among the few humans witnessing the gig, who he said “introduced me to the wonderful world of the moon bears and how appallingly they’d been abused and treated”.

He added: “We’ve still got, even though the Vietnamese been brilliant and they’ve banned bear bile farming, which is fantastic, there’s still some old bear bile farms there where the bears are trapped, they’re still there.

“So we’ve got to get out, and we’ve got to save them and put them in our wonderful sanctuaries.

Wakeman with Animals Asia founder Jill Robinson (Animals Asia)

“If you go online to Animals Asia and look at how the bears react when they’re in the sanctuary, how wonderful how they are, and what a wonderful time they have, then you’ll realise why it’s such a worthwhile thing.”

Wakeman will perform to the bears on September 24.

A petition urging the prime minister of Vietnam to help Animals Asia free the bears still stuck in bile farms can be signed at Animalsasia.org/free.