Caped crusader … Rick Wakeman and singer perform Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Photograph: DFL/Splash/Corbis
"We used to have farting dinosaurs," begins
Rick Wakeman, reeling off tales of prog-era silliness and inflatable stage props that released wind at inopportune moments. "So you'd be playing this beautifully gentle musical section and then … parp!"
- Rick Wakeman
- Journey to the Centre of the Earth
- Royal Albert Hall,
- London
- SW7 2AP
- Until 30 April
- Box office:
020-7589 8212
- Venue website
We've become accustomed to the former prog-rock caped crusader in this reinvented role as raconteur and
TV's Grumpy Old Man. However, this tour returns him to his original habitat: hair flowing behind a mindboggling array of keyboards, and being cheered to the rafters when he walks on in a flowing, diamond-encrusted number that makes him look like a glam-rock archbishop.
Otherwise it's prog excess all areas, as Wakeman's 100mph twiddling fingers share the stage with a narrator, two singers, a rock band, choir and orchestra. Hearing a 1974 prog opus live in 2014 is a curious experience. Musical bravery happily coexists with epic folly. There are sonorous narratives, beautifully ethereal passages,
classical crescendos and hard-rock noodling, not to mention important-sounding brassy bits that sound like something from the court of Henry VIII.
CURRENTLY AVAILABLE AT GONZO
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