Sunday evening was spent at the Glasshouse International Music Centre, Gateshead. My brother Ian the partner in crime on this soiree evoking musical childhood memories
Our mission, which we happily chose to accept before the tape recording self-destructed five seconds later, attending a prog rock performance by Richard Wakeman (RW) of Perivale manor, Middlesex… Admittedly, hardly a mission impossible; although getting our kid to get a round in proved difficult.
Anyhow, during this clambake the former Yes keyboard player performed an amalgam of the band’s anthems, along with his 1974 concept solo album ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’. The latter a musical pastiche based on Jules Verne’s 1864 book of the same name.
Our Ian and me fans of prog rock’s Mrs Mills since our childhoods in the mid-1970’s. An amour borne after making his (RW’s, not Ian’s) 1975 album ‘The Myths & Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table’. the first to grace my vinyl collection… The concept symphony also becoming the longest titled album I ever bought.
That LP still sitting within the eclectic vinyl collection on the shelving of my apartments front room. The progressive rock opera ‘doing what it says on the tin’, affording the listener a collection of musical vignettes relating to the legend of King Arthur, Guinevere, Sir Lancelot et al.
As a 12-year-old, Rick Wakeman’s Camelot concerto triggering an interest in history which previously escaped me. Well, not so much real history, moreover legend, folklore, and tales of historical exaggeration. King Arthur, Robin Hood, and King Alfred’s cake burning among the unlikely yarns then stirring my intrigue.
I guess as a writer whose journals are predominantly fact-based fiction, I am automatically drawn to folklore augmented by artistic licence. Me mischievously advocating the more absurd the better in some cases.
Incidentally, when labelled R Wakeman esq as prog rock’s Mrs Mills, above, it was penned with tongue very much in cheek. The flamboyant Cape Crusader’s rock star behaviour back in the day the very antithesis of that displayed by middl-aged music hall warbler Gladys Mills.
For instance, I am sure long-departed Gladys’ onstage behaviour never included eating a curry during a live performance, as maverick Wakeman famously undertook during a 1973 Yes concert. A stunned Manchester audience witnessing the bands keyboard player troughing Asian food during a performance of the collectives ‘’Tales from Topographic Oceans’.
Like King Arthur’s story, the curry on stage revelation becoming a tale of legend… Thoughts of that curry whetting the appetite a great deal more than notions triggered by tales of Alfred’s overbaked cakes.
As our kid and me hadn’t eaten prior to Sunday’s gig, I was relieved not to see, or more importantly smell, a curry from eight rows back while RW performed. A redolence which would no doubt have triggered hunger pangs; potentially detracting slightly from the overall enjoyment of the evening’s entertainment.
“Never mind all this curry and Mrs Mills chat, Gary!… What was the gig like?” I hear you cry. And if you are not, you should be…. Bloody hell, I have already written 500 words without even broaching the show yet. This narrative venturing off in tangents like a Ronnie Corbett monology.
Although fond of Yes’s songbook I would say, as accomplished as the young lady vocalist was, she was never going to replace the alto tenor delivery of frontman Jon Anderson.
I am not sure why Anderson didn’t partake, although looking at Rick Wakeman’s expanding midriff his ex-band member may well have eaten him!… Only kidding, I’d venture RW is more a chicken curry man than a fella who worships at the altar of cannibalism.
As well as Myths & Legends I have RW’s ‘White Rock’ and ‘Criminal Record’ albums in my collection. Subsequently, I preferred the second set; ie, him performing his solo piece ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’.
The latter album not one I owned on vinyl but did have on pre-recorded audio tape. A piece painting a colourful soundscape of Professor Lidinbrook, nephew Axel, and guide Hans’ odyssey to the Earth’s centre.
A sojourn which in the current zeitgeist may receive a TripAdvisor review from Axel of “Saw loads of coal and mastodon skeletons as we travelled. However, the All-inclusive menu was shit and it was far too f*****g hot for my liking!… I’m going back to Scarborough next year!”
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