June 29, 2006

• Wonderous Stories and Rick the Magician

   

  
  

  

  
  

  sorry, the following blog contains no pictures.

  
  

  you will just have to use your imagination 

  
  

  

  
  

   

  
  

  Last week I attended the Rick Wakeman “grand piano tour” concert rescheduled from march (postponed due to illness)  My Concert Buddy Dennis was unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts with plans with his son, so my Dear Husband, Bernie (of Little Patience) agreed to go along — he had the week off for vacation so couldn’t use the excuse of having to get up early for work. 

  
  

  The show was advertised with an ‘early starting time’ of 7:30, so we rushed down, through a real mess of construction traffic jams and detours, only to find that there was an opening act, a guitar player who I vaguely recalled from a now-defunct band called “huffamoose”. Not bad, typical singer-songwriter fare, but not what we had come for. 

  
  

  Our seats were in my favorite spot, right to the left of the sound board, but from the very beginning Bernie (of little patience) was extremely uncomfortable and cramped in the seats, which I have always had a problem with, but dealt with anyway.  In a way, this made me sort of happy, because I found out that the problem wasn’t just my size – even an ‘average’ sized guy like Bernie didn’t quite fit.  His discomfort and impatience was increased by a wait of nearly an hour between the end of the opening act and Mr Wakeman finally arriving on stage, with profuse apologies — they, too, had been stuck in the constuction traffic.

  
  

  Despite this delay, he seemed quite relaxed and in great humour, and looked quite well. He introduced the show by explaining how it had come about as a result of a similar situation, where his equipment didn’t arrive at a venue in time for a scheduled concert, and he was forced to fill the entire time by improvising pared-down versions of his songs — as he explained, back to the way they were initially written — on a grand piano, interspersed with humourous stories of writing the songs and of his years as a musician and the people and places along the way. When it went over so well, he decided to make a whole tour out of the same format.

  
  

  According to the Keswick soundman, with whom I chatted briefly while waiting for the show to begin, this is truly a minimalist venture — all that Rick has brought along on this tour is a suitcase and his manager (who, I assume, also has a suitcase)

  
  

  
  And what a delightful way to experience the music I have loved for so long. The setlist included favorite pieces from all eras, beginning with “Monkey on a Stick” – the very first song little Richard Wakeman ever performed live for an audience (at age 5) introduced with some recollections of his piano teacher.  This was followed by a breathtaking redition of what he called one of his favorite Strawbs songs (and mine too) “Glimpse of Heaven”.  This song was introduced with a hilarious anecdote about splitting his trousers while performing at an all-girls school with the Strawbs, and subsequently finding out that a spotlight had been shining on the back curtain he went beind to change them — to the uproarious amusement of all in attendance.  They were not, he added, invited bzack to play there again.  I could see by this point, just how his sense of humour compliments and meshes with Dave Cousins’, and why they make such a wonderful team.

  
  

  Unfortunately, I did not write the setlist down, but I think I have it still in my mind. Glimpse of heaven was followed by  “Catherine of Aragon/Catherine Howard”, and then “Morning Has Broken” (a wonderful sentimental surprise for me, as it was one of the songs we used in our wedding, and our 16th anniversary was 2 days after the show) “And You and I” (‘the lost chord variation’ using a chord progression from its early stages of development that was not used in the final release by Yes — a very lovely version of one of my favorites)

  
  

  The strong emotions I was feeling continued with “Gone But Not Forgotten”, which was introduced with reminiscences of Rick’s mother and a suggestion that the audience close our eyes and think of lost loved ones while he played.  Then on to anecdotes about Jon Anderson – ‘a man who tries to save this planet while living on an entirely different one’ followed by “Wonderous Stories” and “The Meeting”

  
  

  Then came an unexpected audience-participation part of the show. After telling a story about one of the times (which apparently were quite frequent) where he had to improvise a piece of music ‘on the fly’, he proceeded to demonstrate how ‘simple’ it was to take any sequence of notes and turn them into a melody.  He asked 6 audience members to call out a note, and then improvised an introduction to “After The Ball” using the audience’s notes.  He said not to complain to him if we didn’t like it — because we wrote it! — and it sounded absolutely gorgeous, as expected. It was really a privelege and pleasure to see the creative process unfold, as he took 6 raw notes and expanded on them, layering sound upon sound to make a full blown piece of music.

  
  

  He concluded the main body of the performance with two Beatles songs, done “in the style of” major classical composers.  As a classically trained musician myself, I really appreciated this part, and was totally awed at how perfectly he interpreted “Help” in the style of French composer SaintSaens and “Eleanor Rigby” in the style of Prokofiev, who he explained was his personal favorite composer (knowing that now — I can really hear the influence…).

  
  

  And with the encore came one further highlight, which I will reprint from the Keswick Theatre’s latest news email:

  
  

  “RICK WAKEMAN PLAYS THE KESWICK THEATRE ORGAN! As a special part of his encore here last Wednesday night, legendary YES keyboardist RICK WAKEMAN did an extended number on the 1,400-pipe organ here – a relatively rare showing & playing of this historic instrument. The 1928 Moller organ has been painstakingly restored over the last 18 years via thousands of man-hours of dedicated volunteer labor by The Theatre Organ Society of the Delaware Valley, and Rick’s playing earned him a prolonged standing ovation. Authentic theater organs are so relatively rare that many in the audience had never experienced the sheer power of it previously. We hope to be able to incorporate this novel instrument into other concerts in the future on occasion. Thank you, Rick, for “pulling out all the stops” – literally!”

  
  

  Totally awed to hear “Jane Seymour” on this venerable old instrument, I sat in speechless bliss as he moved back to the grand piano to conclude the program with “Merlin the Magician”.

  
  

  And an appropriate choice it was, a truly magical evening was had by all.  I even think at a few points that my long-sufferring  (and relatively non-musical, especially in a prog or classical sense) husband, Bernie (of little patience) actually enjoyed himself. I know he enjoyed the stories, because he remarked as we walked back to the Jeep that “If Wakeman ever decides to retire from keyboard playing, he could have a stellar second career in stand-up comedy”!

  
  

  

  • 2:26 pm
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