"I was actually booked to play piano on a session at Pye Studios in London's Marble Arch and it was to play on some backtracks for an unknown singer who was due in later that week to put his vocals on."

"Shortly afterwards I started having some success with Strawbs and the next thing we knew was that the album was being put out by PYE Records as "Piano Vibrations" with no vocalist and with a picture of me on the back."

"I was unhappy and A&M Records, who had Strawbs and myself signed, were furious."

"I received £9 for my trouble."

"The original music was written to be much longer as well, but had to be severely edited to make it shorter to perform live so that it would fit on two sides of the album!!! And what happened to the edited music? Well suffice to say that throughout three divorces much has been lost!"

"The concert was recorded on 16 track tape and basically there was spillage onto all the tracks from everything. The Battle suffered the most as some terrible wrong notes, bad playing and a horrendous buzz made quite a substantial section completely unusable. It was not possible to re-record either and match sounds and so a chunk of the piece was copied and used twice, hence for the astute listener, there is a verse section of completely wrong lyrics."

"At the time I was having a huge run in with A&M records and their hierarchy would do anything possible to try and disrupt what I was trying to do. It was not an easy time."

"I delivered the finished soundtrack album and it was immediately thrown back in my face and a deal was done directly with the film company to take the tapes and do what they wanted with them, which was a complete disaster in my eyes."

"The album flopped dismally and I was furious because it was my name on the front cover."

"To be honest, I don’t remember too much about this particular show except that it was a great period in Europe for rock shows on television and it was quite common to be invited to Scandinavia, Italy, Holland and Germany to do live shows which were broadcast on major network channels at prime time. Watching this performance back reminds me just what a fantastic time it was for musicians back then. Interesting to note that two of the band in this performance (Ashley Holt and Tony Fernandez) and still in the English Rock Ensemble today!  (The phrase “Gluttons for punishment” springs to mind) and whilst the sound quality is not the greatest in places, it is a very unique recording and piece of film as to the best of my knowledge this is the only record on either film or audio of this particular line-up of the ERE."

Live 1980: Swedish Television Special (video courtesy of Rick Wakeman) - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoIDt_C5y1LsdDrXK6QACUrQoFPEABHN9" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoIDt_C5y1LsdDrXK6QACUrQoFPEABHN9

"This was a strange era for me. Concept albums and prog rock were at possibly their lowest ebbs and there was I having just recorded a massive concept album, co-written with Tim Rice, and followed it up with a huge prog rock concert at Hammersmith Odeon…..err…..no points Wakeman!
Truth was I just wanted to do what I felt I was best at and not tow the fashion line musically.
It was a very difficult time in my life. I had lost my father a few months earlier, my 2nd marriage was on the rocks and musically I had no idea what was likely to happen to me in the coming months or years and to top it all, the band proved to be one of the few very unhappy line-ups that I had ever put together, although it has to be said that this concert was certainly a highlight."