RICK WAKEMAN'S GRUMPY OLD PICTURE SHOW

This tour was a bit a of a music/comedy hybrid. Wakeman filled the gaps between each song with more of his amusing anecdotes and rock ramblings, complete with accompanying images. The song selection is a nice blend of significant solo-career tracks, new arrangements, and some purely "fun" inclusions (namely, the 5-note 'See a monkey on a stick', which was the first short tune Rick learnt as a young boy). Having said this, there are moments of duller music which perhaps can only be appreciated with a full familarilty with many of Wakeman's solo outputs. Anything which borders on being indulgent or boring is nicely outweighed though by the intertwined comedy.

Highlights include McCartney's 'Eleanor Rigby' in the style of Prokofiev, which makes for very interesting listening, the 'Six Wives Medley' OF COURSE, and 'Merlin The Magician', which, having not bought the 'Myths and Legends...' album, I was surprised to like first time around. The duel with his latest collaborator Gordon Giltrapp, is also very nice to listen to and watch (Gordon plays with Rick from a pre-recorded video, where three versions of him and his guitar appear on screen playing different parts, along with Rick's piano). 'Starship Trooper' shows potential but is just no match for Yes. But my absolute favourite part is when Wakeman pretends to phone a curry house and order a Tikka Masala mid-song....

So, if you're a fan of solo Wakeman and you like his detailed comedic tales of the music industry as well, then you can do no wrong in buying this fairly recent dvd. Nothing special or particularly original here, but nothing outrightly bad either.