Rick Wakeman played in front of 150 bears – Watch the video

Over the course of his long career, Rick Wakeman, the legendary keyboardist of Yes, has performed in front of every kind of audience imaginable. This time, though, for one of his latest shows, he chose a decidedly unusual crowd: over 150 moon bears housed at the Vietnam Bear Rescue Centre run by Animals Asia, in Tam Dao National Park. The English musician had a Yamaha grand piano carried into the Vietnamese jungle for "Free The Final Bears", an initiative launched to support the release of the last bears still confined on the country's bile farms.

The concert was designed specifically with the animals in mind: around 60% of the music was new material, composed by Wakeman especially for the occasion. Among the new pieces was "Moon", dedicated to a bear directly sponsored by the musician, and "Dawn Reborn", inspired by a female bear rescued after more than twenty years spent in a cage. During the performance, eleven bears approached the concert area, and one of them, Georges, even reared up on his hind legs to watch the scene.

Wakeman has always shown a particular concern for animal welfare. The keyboardist, who lives with rescued dogs and cats, has said he often observes their reactions to the music played at home too. His relationship with Animals Asia goes back at least to 2016. The organisation has already rescued around 300 bears in Vietnam. Moon bears, a species of Asian black bear recognisable by the distinctive pale crescent-shaped patch on their chest, have long been exploited for bile extraction, used in traditional medicine. This practice is now banned in Vietnam, but an exemption still allows the keeping of animals registered before the ban came into force. The new campaign aims to free the roughly 125 bears still held on farms and move them to rescue centres, where they can begin a long road to rehabilitation.

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