Keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman weaves a magic spell at the London Palladium — review

The evening was billed as “The Return of the Caped Crusader”. No, not the lunk from Gotham City, but fabled prog-rock keyboardist Rick Wakeman — he of the colourful capes and dancing digits, a member of prog’s proggiest band Yes in the early 1970s before embarking on a solo career of gargantuan proportions.

His website lists more than 120 albums to his name, the latest being A Gallery of the Imagination. It finds Wakeman, who is 73, in a reflective mood, drawn more to gentle piano melodies than monstrous synthesiser solos. But the Caped Crusader hadn’t swooped on to the London Palladium’s stage (or in truth trudged) in order to play any new songs. Instead, this was to be a night of vintage prog nostalgia.

Split over two successive gigs, Wakeman was revisiting highlights from his voluminous back catalogue. The second concert would concentrate on classic Yes songs and his 1974 orchestral rock retelling of Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth. The first, with the FT in attendance, was devoted to his debut solo album, 1973’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and his 1975 hit The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. 

The staging was constrained in comparison to the no-cost-spared excess of his 1970s pomp. The original live gigs for King Arthur involved an ice show at Wembley Arena with professional skaters playing the parts of the Arthurian characters. Among the many mishaps were uncontrollable fogs of dry ice and Wakeman being left dangling in mid-air after his cape became snagged on an elevated keyboard. The stress and ruinous financial expense contributed to his suffering a heart attack afterwards. 

Characteristically undaunted, he remarked from the Palladium’s stage that he’d love to do another ice show. For now, however, he had to make do with merely 30 or so accompanying musicians and singers. They consisted of his band The English Rock Ensemble, the English Chamber Choir and a vocalist, or “sing thing” in Wakeman’s phrase, Hayley Sanderson.

He opened with Six Wives, his concept album about Henry VIII’s convoluted marital history. Each wife had her own track, played here in historical order rather than the recording’s jumbled chronology (caused by vinyl formatting). Surrounded by electronic keyboards and modular synthesisers, Wakeman wore a dazzling red, gold and blue cape. His son Adam stood nearby playing a less extravagant array of keyboards, another set of dancing digits. 

Wakeman’s own hands, which were encased in fingerless gloves, suffer arthritis these days. But he played with evergreen dexterity, a more serious-looking figure at the ivories than the jocular character who had introduced the gig. The choir’s vocalisations were drowned out during “Catherine of Aragon”, but the sound mix improved thereafter. Solos of all types poured forth from Wakeman’s various keyboards, like the abrupt transitions between romantic melodicism and frisky vaudeville that soundtracked “Catherine Howard”.

King Arthur came next. Wakeman reappeared in a green cape with an image of a broadsword sewn on its back. The music recounted the legend of Camelot with an entertainingly anachronistic mix of sci-fi electronics, Tudorbethan capering and irruptions of hard rock. Sanderson’s vocals were to the fore, the highlight being her bluesy belting in “Sir Lancelot and the Black Knight”.

Encoring with “Merlin the Magician”, Wakeman marched to the front with a keytar whose appearance caused a great rumbling cheer from the prog massive in the audience. Some deafeningly funky soloing ensued, abetted by his son, also on keytar, and guitarist Dave Colquhoun. And with that — not a puff of smoke, but a cheery wave and a trudge off stage — the keyboard wizard of 1970s mythology was gone.

★★★★☆

rwcc.com