Rick Wakeman - The Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour

[progman1975]

**More Dates to be Added***

Keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman embarks on his first solo tour of America in 13 years. Wakeman’s The Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour will combine spellbinding piano music with sidesplitting jokes and revealing insights into his 50-plus-year career. Expect an evening of superb musicianship, featuring music from YES, Rick’s own solo epics and early Bowie hits, plus fantastic arrangements of Beatles’ tunes, and much, much more, interspersed with knockabout (and sometimes bawdy!) typically British humor.

The 25 city tour will kick-off Saturday, September 21st in Annapolis, MD at the Maryland Hall For The Creative Arts and continue through November. Tickets will be going on sale starting next week in select markets. Ticket information will be added as tickets go on sale and additional dates will be added.

Sept. 21 - Annapolis, MD - Maryland Hall For The Creative Arts - Tickets
Sept. 22 - Derry, NH - Tupelo Music Hall
Sept. 23 - Boston, MA - The Wilbur
Sept. 24 - Huntington, NY - The Paramount
Sept. 25 - Alexandria, VA - The Birchmere
Sept. 27 - Quebec City, PQ - Palais Montcalm
Sept. 28 - Montreal, PQ - Olympia Theatre
Sept. 29 - Toronto, ON - Danforth Music Hall
Oct. 2 - Harrisburg, PA - Whitaker Center
Oct. 4 - St. Charles, IL - Arcada Theatre
Oct. 8 - Allentown, PA - Miller Symphony Hall
Oct. 10 - Englewood, NJ - Bergen Performing Arts Center
Oct. 11 - Collingswood, NJ - Scottish Rite Auditorium
Oct. 13 - Ridgefield, CT - Ridgefield Playhouse

[Steve983]

Expect to hear the same jokes he's been telling for 25+ years but at least you guys haven't heard them for 13 years...

[Dan Roth]

I wonder if he will do multiple press interviews the way Jon A did for his recent tour. If so, we will have a fresh batch of responses to “What’s going on with ARW?” and maybe a few “Jon says he wants to work with Steve again, how bout you?” questions.

[Ground and Sky's Ghost]

Oct. 2 - Harrisburg, PA - Whitaker Center

Hey, that's just down the road from me. Guess I know what I'll be doing on Oct. 2nd.

Weirdly, I was about to say that I've never seen Wakeman in person, because he's never been in Yes the times that I've seen them...but then I remembered that I saw him with ABWH and on the Union tour.

The ABWH show was the first Yes-related concert I ever went to. It was at a now-defunct concert venue on City Island, on the Susquehanna river next to Harrisburg, PA. It was an outdoor show with no seating and attendance wasn't great, so I was able to stand about five feet away from the stage.

Compare that to the Union tour, where I had to drive all the way to Virginia to see a sold-out show, and could only get seats in the absolute last row of the arena, as far as possible from the stage. I guess for most fans the "Yes" name means a lot.

[floyd umma gumma]

I remember seeing ABWH at Madison Square Garden. As far as I remember, it was pretty full - much more so than when I saw the Talk tour there in 1994. There were a ton of empty seats for the Talk show I saw at MSG. I figured that would be the last time they would ever play there - then they made it back for a great show 10 years later.

[yamishogun]

Compare that to the Union tour, where I had to drive all the way to Virginia to see a sold-out show, and could only get seats in the absolute last row of the arena, as far as possible from the stage. I guess for most fans the "Yes" name means a lot.

Yeah, but Union had the smash hit "Lift Me Up" while ABWH had "Teakbois"...

[yamishogun]

I wonder if he will do multiple press interviews the way Jon A did for his recent tour. If so, we will have a fresh batch of responses to “What’s going on with ARW?” and maybe a few “Jon says he wants to work with Steve again, how bout you?” questions.

Wakeman in September: "I really enjoyed working with Trevor and Jon - both are just brilliant, although Jon can be a little "out there!" [laughs]. I just wanted to make new music but the powers that be wouldn't let us get into a studio, so it didn't come together as I had hoped. I expect to work with Trevor and Jon in 2020 or 2021 - so we'll see."

[Lopez]

Just might have to attend the Wilbur show in Boston on September 23rd. Very close to where I work. Missed him the last time he came this way and played in a movie theater near me.

[GuitarGeek]

Let's see, I must have seen Rick in about 2003 or so. I remember talking to him about seeing the Radio CIty Music Hall show, which I know was in 2002, so 2003 must be right. When I mentioned that hsow, he sort of gasped and said, "Oh, wasn't that a wonderful show?" or something like that. And I aske dhim about playing the pipe organ, and he said it was interesting because there's a delay between when he play a key, and the note actually sounds, plus it was about a quarter tone off.

[Dan Roth]

I saw Rick on the "Wakeman with Wakeman" tour with Adam and it was amazing - of course this was in the mid-80s, in a tiny club called the Chestnut Cabaret in Philly. But a night of piano music and jokes? I don't know.

[progman1975]

I saw Rick on the "Wakeman with Wakeman" tour with Adam and it was amazing - of course this was in the mid-80s, in a tiny club called the Chestnut Cabaret in Philly. But a night of piano music and jokes? I don't know.

Yea, I'm starting to wonder too

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[arturs]

^^^ If you've never seen the music + jokes show and you haven't heard the jokes before, you should definitely go. I saw Rick solo in the early 00s and I still remember the jokes. it means they were pretty good jokes, but it also means I don't need to see the show again.

Now if he did an ERE tour of the USA I would make every effort to see that! I know I know, too dang expensive to tour with a band...

[moecurlythanu]

But a night of piano music and jokes? I don't know.

It should be a smash. They have them at the Holiday Inn bar/lounge all the time.

[yamishogun]

It should be a smash. They have them at the Holiday Inn bar/lounge all the time.

The odd thing about Rick being very funny on interviews he's conducted that I've seen is that in general Yes fans have little sense of humor.

[Halmyre]

Expect to hear the same jokes he's been telling for 25+ years but at least you guys haven't heard them for 13 years...

How come musicians can play the same songs over and over and nobody complains but comedians have to keep coming up with new stuff? You don't hear someone at the Albert Hall shouting "HEARD IT!" when the orchestra strikes up Beethoven's Fifth.

[Finch Platte]

How come musicians can play the same songs over and over and nobody complains but comedians have to keep coming up with new stuff? You don't hear someone at the Albert Hall shouting "HEARD IT!" when the orchestra strikes up Beethoven's Fifth.

What's the deal with airline peanuts??

[Man In The Mountain]

Oct 4th at the Arcada. Hmmm, the day before Hackett plays Chicago on Oct 5th. I’ll see how much tickets are. I tend to never want to miss Rick, but I am so sick of his piano & comedy schtick. Why not come and play Journey like he’s doing in the UK this summer? The piano tour just seems like easy money, and he really doesn’t bring and surprises or push himself. I’ll probably go though.

[ronmac]

I saw Rick on the "Wakeman with Wakeman" tour with Adam and it was amazing - of course this was in the mid-80s, in a tiny club called the Chestnut Cabaret in Philly. But a night of piano music and jokes? I don't know.

I saw both tours (got a nice recording of the WWW show) and they were both great.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

How come musicians can play the same songs over and over and nobody complains but comedians have to keep coming up with new stuff? You don't hear someone at the Albert Hall shouting "HEARD IT!" when the orchestra strikes up Beethoven's Fifth.

Good music gets better with repeated listenings (to a certain limit). Comedy, with rare exceptions, depends so much on surprise that it gets stale fast.

[GuitarGeek]

The odd thing about Rick being very funny on interviews he's conducted that I've seen is that in general Yes fans have little sense of humor.

I remember telling someone about how Wakeman was, with the humor, this was back in the 90's, right after I got a bootlegged VHS of interview footage of the band, and this guy (who wasn't really that into prog rock) was somewhat surprised to find out that anyone in that band would have any kind of a sense of humor. I guess one reckons that when the music is "Oh, so serious" without any hint of a grin or smirk or whatever, you expect the people making the music to be the same.

Rush is like that too. If you just listen to the music, you'd never expect that there's a wacky contingency within that band. But then you go see them in concert, you hear the Three Stooges play on music, etc and you realize, "Wait a minute, these guys really don't take themselves seriously, do they?". I only saw them once, on the Vapor Trails tour, and this crazy bit of animation they showed during By-Tor And The Snow Dog, that depicted Alex and Geddy in various animated caricatures. The thing that got me was the bit where they showed this close of an animated Neil, looking very unamused by hi-jinks. That made me laugh hysterically, more so than the Alex and Geddy stuff.

[moecurlythanu]

The odd thing about Rick being very funny on interviews he's conducted that I've seen is that in general Yes fans have little sense of humor.

I remember reading an article on Genesis from the 70s in which the writer mentioned a couple fans arriving at the concert with foil pyramids on top of their head to take advantage of the increased spiritual energies going on in the venue. Pyramid Power. The tinfoil hat stereotype, apparently. There was no humor intended, but it's quite funny. Unfortunately, Prog did bring out a small subset of incredibly strange fans. Such undoubtedly did not help the bands with the music press.

[ronmac]

Good music gets better with repeated listenings (to a certain limit). Comedy, with rare exceptions, depends so much on surprise that it gets stale fast.

Plus, comedy relies more on ...

[ronmac]

... timing.

[Ground and Sky's Ghost]

I remember seeing ABWH at Madison Square Garden. As far as I remember, it was pretty full - much more so than when I saw the Talk tour there in 1994. There were a ton of empty seats for the Talk show I saw at MSG. I figured that would be the last time they would ever play there - then they made it back for a great show 10 years later.

Good point, I forgot about the Talk tour. My wife and I saw that tour at Merriweather Post Pavilion in MD, and walking into the venue a ticket broker (scalper?) offered to upgrade our lawn tickets to seats in the 10th row just right of center for around $10 (I'm not sure about the exact price, but it was really cheap). Needless to say, we did. Probably the best seats we've ever had for a Yes show.

[rich]

I remember seeing ABWH at Madison Square Garden. As far as I remember, it was pretty full - much more so than when I saw the Talk tour there in 1994. There were a ton of empty seats for the Talk show I saw at MSG. I figured that would be the last time they would ever play there - then they made it back for a great show 10 years later.

I did not know they played the Garden on that tour I saw them at Jones Beach. The Beach was packed and the band really rocked... I know that LP has a love/hate relationship with most around here... I'm in the love category. I think it is the best LP with Trevor certainly.