On this day, 15/04/1976 keyboard giant Rick Wakeman played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre. He had just released his fourth studio album, No Earthly Connection, with the English Rock Ensemble. Recorded at Château d'Hérouville in France, the album charted at No. 12 in the UK and No. 29 on the Billboard 200.
No Earthly Connection marked a change in Wakeman's musical direction. He retained the progressive rock style in his music, but made a conscious decision to make a more serious album without the comedic and tongue in cheek elements he had incorporated in his previous works. He wished to write something "that I believed in fervently". Wakeman said it is a part fictional and non-fictional musical autobiography based on things people know exist but unsure as to why or cannot explain, the question of life and its different forms, evolution, and flying saucers.
