Ask if there’s some underlying psychological reason for the opulence, the grandeur, the sheer spectacle of his infamous live shows, and he’ll offer up a blokey shrug. “Not really, I just like grandiose. I’ve loved the idea of telling stories with music since I was about eight, when my father introduced me to Prokofiev’s but over the years, I got bored going to concerts.
The music was great, but I came to the conclusion that a concert should be a multi-purpose entertainment.” There have been plenty of other artists who went the extra mile: and the Wall; and the Glass Spider; AC/DC and Rosie. Still, when it comes to the multi-sensory assault-and-battery of eyes, ears and brains – not to mention a flag planted deep in your memory banks, for good or bad – nothing has comes close to Wakeman’s epics.
“Dad doesn’t do things by halves,” agrees Rick’s son Adam Wakeman, himself a musician who has played with Wakeman Sr multiple times. That’s the only understatement you’ll find in this piece. The truth is, Wakeman does things by multiples: whether that’s wives, knights, ice-dancers, dinosaurs, cameramen or choirboys.
To this prog rock ringmaster, the industry-standard format of four blokes in jeans plugging away on a bare stage is anathema. “How boring would be?” he grins. Even in the years, hints of grandiosity were there if you squinted, with a caped Wakeman presiding over his paddock of synths.
But it wasn’t until 1973, when his solo career left .
