Music / Reviews
Review: Rick Wakeman’s Grumpy Christmas Stocking, Bath Forum
There’s an illuminated Christmas tree at the back of the stage and a large stocking hanging from Rick Wakeman CBE’s Steinway grand piano. Too soon? Well, Rick’s Grumpy Christmas Stocking tour actually began in late November and the venerable grouchy Prog Santa has plenty more towns and cities to visit with his bulging sack of gags and tunes before the big day.
He’s written about the very different audiences he attracts to his shows these days – from hardcore prog enthusiasts to more elderly folk who know him only as that fella off the telly. Although there are more than a few walking sticks being used to shuffle round the Forum tonight, it’s the proggers who are most audible, notably when he dedicates the pleasingly non-mawkish Gone But Not Forgotten from 1983’s Cost of Living album to his late peers Jon Lord and Keith Emerson.
is needed now More than ever
Genial raconteur Rick has been doing his Grumpy Christmas Shows since 2019 and the format is now well established: instrumental music on piano or electric keyboards, bit of patter, music, jokes, music, comic observations, music, and so on. As it’s a solo show, the running costs are presumably much lower than they will be for the full production of his key early albums that he’s doing at the London Palladium next February, which probably helps the grumpy bank balance. It’s also an opportunity for him to prepare for those shows, serving up two of the Six Wives (Catherine Parr, Jane Seymour) and, delightfully, reviving Merlin the Magician from 1975’s The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table album – all of which demonstrate that he’s lost none of his dexterity as he approaches his 74th Christmas.
We also learn a fair bit about life chez Wakeman as he talks about his six kids, 13 grandchildren (“all they do is breed”) – to whom he’s ‘Grandpa Grumpy’ – and three rescue dogs. The show threatens to get a bit ‘Grandkids say the funniest things’ in places, but he does tell one genuinely hilarious joke that he claims he got from his 12-year-old granddaughter. Further belly laughs are provoked by the Rick Wakeman Guide to the Menopause (he’s been married four times).
A few Christmas carols are reworked in idiosyncratic style, as is Amazing Grace, and he returns to his greatest session work for the 1972 Cat Stevens hit Morning Has Broken and a diptych of David Bowie classics: Space Oddity (on which he originally played Mellotron) and the fabulous piano arrangement of Life On Mars? that helped propel his Piano Portraits album into the UK top ten five years ago. The Yes years, meanwhile, are represented by the 1977 hit Wondrous Stories.
The somewhat Vangelis-esque Seahorses from 1979’s Rhapsodies album is another highlight. This is rarely played, he explains, because it requires two particular keyboards.
The main part of the show ends with two cracking Beatles covers in the style of great composers. Help!, he reasons, is fair game because John Lennon conceived it as a ballad rather than an upbeat pop song. So he performs it in the French romantic style of Saint-Saëns. We’ve enjoyed several makeovers of Paul McCartney’s Eleanor Rigby in recent months. Rosalie Cunningham rocked it up at the Thekla, while Enuff Z’Nuff delivered a metal version at the Academy. Wakeman takes a different approach, arranging the song in the style of Prokofiev. The result is fabulously bombastic and redolent of his prime early ’70s work. He says he takes requests for these shows, so let’s have more in this vein next time please, Rick. And how about Birdman of Alkatraz or The Breathalyser from Criminal Record?
All pix by Mike Evans
Read more: Metal & Prog Picks: December 2022
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