Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Grumpy Old Rock Star by Rick Wakeman adds extra shows to his Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour. Last month, Rick Wakeman announced that he’d head out on tour across North America on The Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour . The keyboard maestro initially revealed a run of 14 shows which will combine “spellbinding piano music with side-splitting jokes and revealing insights into his 50-plus-year career.” Now Wakeman has added a further eight performances which will take place from mid-October. A statement on the tour adds: “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 humour.” Find a full list of Wakeman’s North American tour dates below, with the new shows highlighted in bold. Before his trip across the Atlantic, Wakeman will play two night’s at London’s Royal Festival Hall on July 13 and 14, where he’ll revisit his epic live Journey To The Centre Of The Earth . Rick Wakeman Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour Sep 21: Annapolis Maryland Hall For The Creative Arts, MD Sep 22: Derry Tupelo Music Hall, NH Sep 23: Boston The Wilbur, MA Sep 24: Huntington The Paramount, NY Sep 25: Alexandria The Birchmere, VA Sep 27: Quebec City Palais Montcalm, QC Sep 28: Montreal Olympia Theatre, QC Sep 29: Toronto Danforth Music Hall, ON Oct 02: Harrisburg Whitaker Center, PA Oct 04: St. Charles Arcada Theatre, IL Oct 08: Allentown Miller Symphony Hall, PA Oct 10: Englewood Bergen Performing Arts Center, NJ Oct 11: Collingswood Scottish Rite Auditorium, NJ Oct 13: Ridgefield Playhouse, CT Oct 16: Seattle The Triple Door, WA Oct 17: Portland Revolution Hall, OR Oct 19: San Francisco Castro Theatre, CA Oct 20: San Juan Capistrano Coach House, CA Oct 22: Los Angeles Theatre at Ace Hotel, CA Oct 25: Atlanta City Winery, GA Oct 26: Clearwater Capitol Theatre, FL Oct 27: Orlando The Plaza Live, FL. GRUMPY OLD ROCK STAR. Grumpy Old Rock Star and other Wondrous Stories. Grumpy Old Rockstar is a collection of never-before-told stories from Rick Wakeman's amazing life, from ordering a curry on-stage to how he ended up with the earth from around Che Guevara's body in his shed. BOOK 2. Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star. What do Postman Pat, Tommy Cooper, Norman Wisdom and George Best have in common with being abandoned in a Costa Rican jungle after a severe bout of flatulence? Indeed, how are they also connected to trying to buy an Australian brewery just to get a beer, owning twenty-two cars, an American soccer team and a Swiss mail-order pornography company? BOOK 3 (COMING SOON) Even Further Adventures of a Grumpy Old Rock Star. Rick Wakeman. Rick is one of the most gifted keyboard players of his generation, as at home on stage at a rock concert as in the organ loft of a great cathedral. He as known now for his TV appearances on Grumpy Old Men and Countdown and his hugely popular Saturday morning radio show on Planet Rock - 500,000 tune in the UK alone, and some say 10 million people listen world-wide. He presents television shows and writes hymns. Rick Wakeman. Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour Produced by Larry Magid. Doors at 7pm. 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. Professional musician, keyboard player, songwriter, broadcaster and raconteur, Wakeman’s career started as a much-in-demand session player, who performed on recordings by , Elton John, Lou Reed, Al Stewart and hundreds more artists. His big break came in 1971 when he joined YES, who went on to become the most successful prog rock band in the world, but Wakeman has also always gone his own way outside the framework of that group. In the Seventies, he achieved chart-topping success with solo such as Journey To The Centre Of The Earth , The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table , which cumulatively sold over 10,000,000 copies in North America alone. He has written several film scores, amongst them two for director Ken Russell ( Lisztomania and Crimes of Passion ) and two ‘Harry Palmer’ movies starring Michael Caine ( Bullet To Beijing and Midnight in St Petersburg ), and in the UK, has built up an impressive reputation as a witty guest and host on shows like Grumpy Old Men , Countdown , Watchdog and the comedy cabaret show Live at Jongleurs . His wickedly irreverent acceptance speech when YES was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 nearly brought the house down! That same year, he made British chart history when his record became the first solo piano instrumental album to enter the UK’s Top 10 on release – a feat he then repeated with last year’s . Both records feature tunes that have a special connection with Rick’s personal musical journey and his subsequent tours, in which he performs a selection of tracks accompanied by hilarious memories and anecdotes have been instant sell-outs in the UK. Book a table at Best Girl. Book a bed at Ace Hotel. Live a little. Details. 8PM–Tuesday, October 22 Doors at 7pm $50-$75. Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour Produced by Larry Magid. Doors at 7pm. 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. Professional musician, keyboard player, songwriter, broadcaster and raconteur, Wakeman’s career started as a much-in-demand session player, who performed on recordings by David Bowie, Elton John, Lou Reed, Al Stewart and hundreds more artists. His big break came in 1971 when he joined YES, who went on to become the most successful prog rock band in the world, but Wakeman has also always gone his own way outside the framework of that group. In the Seventies, he achieved chart-topping success with solo albums such as Journey To The Centre Of The Earth , The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table , which cumulatively sold over 10,000,000 copies in North America alone. He has written several film scores, amongst them two for director Ken Russell ( Lisztomania and Crimes of Passion ) and two ‘Harry Palmer’ movies starring Michael Caine ( Bullet To Beijing and Midnight in St Petersburg ), and in the UK, has built up an impressive reputation as a witty guest and host on shows like Grumpy Old Men , Countdown , Watchdog and the comedy cabaret show Live at Jongleurs . His wickedly irreverent acceptance speech when YES was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 nearly brought the house down! That same year, he made British chart history when his Piano Portraits record became the first solo piano instrumental album to enter the UK’s Top 10 on release – a feat he then repeated with last year’s Piano Odyssey . Both records feature tunes that have a special connection with Rick’s personal musical journey and his subsequent tours, in which he performs a selection of tracks accompanied by hilarious memories and anecdotes have been instant sell-outs in the UK. Book a table at Best Girl. Book a bed at Ace Hotel. Live a little. Rick Wakeman: The Not So Grumpy Rock Star. All-time great keyboardist (Yes, solo) Performs Thursday Oct. 10 at BergenPac in Englewood. Rick Wakeman is bringing his Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour to the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood on Thursday, Oct. 10, but don't let the name fool you. Wakeman, the premier prog-rock keyboardist and so much more, is by no means cantankerous. To the contrary, he's wonderfully funny, amiable and insightful. (Wakeman has appeared in the British comedy TV series "Grumpy Old Men" and wrote two books with the title "Grumpy Old Man," hence the moniker). Wakeman is touring the U.S. for the first time as a solo artist in 13 years and the Englishman will have plenty of humorous tales imbued with bawdy British humor to tell in-between songs spanning his 50-year career. The man is best known as the keyboardist for all-time great prog-rockers Yes and a prolific solo artist whose epic masterpieces include "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" and "The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table." He's recently toured with fellow former Yes members and Trevor Rabin in ARW. Wakeman is also a prolific who has appeared on recordings by David Bowie, Elton John, Lou Reed, Al Stewart and hundreds more artists. In 2016, Wakeman performed a piano version of his good friend Bowie's "Life On Mars" shortly after his passing – Wakeman also performed on the original version. The rendition became a hit and led Wakeman to record two albums of piano interpretations of works by Bowie, , Queen and more: "Piano Portraits" (2017) and "Piano Odyssey" (2018) both hit the Top in the UK. On Nov. 29 he'll release "." We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Rick Wakeman, the not-so-grumpy rock star. While you've toured America as part of ARW over the past few years, this is your first solo, one-man show tour of the States in 13 years. Why the wait? It was actually agents and people in the U.S. who saw me in the UK doing similar shows and said you really need to bring it to America. They especially liked the storytelling aspect. I've actually been doing that for 50-odd years. It started in my days with (folk-rock band) The Strawbs in the late 60s. In folk clubs there were always stories told in-between the pieces. For some unknown reason folk singers, especially those who played the guitar, had a different tuning for every piece they played. So it took them five minutes to tune and they started telling stories while they were tuning up. So when I started doing my own shows I thought rather than saying, 'this next piece is called whatever,' I thought it'd be nice to engage and tell how the music came about and I've been involved with comedy for a long time so that started to fit more and more into the shows, especially the piano shows. What kind of setlist will you be playing? I do a mixture of music, some of which is mine. I do some Yes stuff, Bowie, Cat Stevens, Beatles. In between I tell ludicrous stories about ridiculous things that have happened to me during my life. Ideally you want people to go away having a good night and go through as many emotions as you can fit into one show. You've played huge shows with orchestra and choirs. Now you're performing in intimate venues. What are the challenges with each? The big orchestral shows are difficult because so many people are involved. I recently did two big orchestral shows in London and just the sheer amount of people involved working together is a challenge all its own. With the intimate shows the problem is that from the moment you walk onstage you are the focal point. In a band people always have moments where you can relax a little bit, while there's a guitar solo or featured vocals or even during the dreaded drum solo. When you're on your own there's no relaxation or recharging the batteries while someone else is doing something. You really have to have your wits about you. But the great advantage is you can always change things. I'll always have a plan of what I'm going to play but for whatever reason I might chop and change pieces or chop and change stories from one night to the next. Between bands, session work and solo releases you've played on some 90 albums that have sold more than 50 million copies. What do you think about when you reflect on that? I just think, 'My God I'm old!' I've never counted as I went along but I suppose it adds up the more years you do it. I've been very fortunate playing with so many different artists over the years and working with so many different people being involved in everything from books and radio and television and onstage. I'm 70. I needed all those years to cram it all in. I think I still have another 40 years' worth of stuff left that I want to do but I'm not totally convinced I'm going to make it to 110. Tell us about your recent albums, "Piano Portraits" and "Piano Odyssey," which feature your interpretations of songs by many of the people you've worked with and admire including David Bowie and the Beatles. It started with "Life On Mars." When David first played it to me he played it on acoustic guitar and he said to me think of it as a piano piece. I've always played it as if it was a piano piece which is exactly what he wanted. On the day after he passed away I went down to the BBC to do a eulogy and at the end of the program they asked me to play "Life On Mars." They did a webcam of it and over the next three days it had two million hits. They said you've got to record this. We put it out for a cancer charity in the UK and it did very well. People said why don't you do more piano stuff, variations on pieces that you've been involved in or really like. That led to "Piano Portraits" and then the follow-up "Piano Odyssey," which was slightly different. It had a few choir bits and a few orchestra bits. To complete the trilogy we just finished "Christmas Portraits" which comes out Nov. 29. That's variations on 22 very well known Christmas pieces. What comes into play when choosing a song to record as a piano rendition? First of all whatever the piece it has to have a great melody. It's nothing new. Composers have been doing it for centuries, taking the music of their peers and other people and doing their own variations of it. If you have a strong melody you can do that. Then I sit down at the piano and start playing around with the themes and make musical notes, write things down about how to play them and eventually the piece builds up. I try to do so it doesn't take away from what the original piece was but adds a new twist, as if I'm taking a painting and painting it with different colors. How have your ambitions and goals changed over the decades? Right from the early days I never had goals or ambitions. I simply wanted to be the best I could. I practiced really hard and worked really hard. Ambition is something that happens. I've never said I want to be this or that. One of the things that really annoys me these days is on programs like "The X Factor or "America's Got Talent" is when people say, 'I want to be famous.' I'd like to strangle them. I think it's a sentence that should be removed from the English language. The fact of life is you're good at something and work hard then fame might be a byproduct of what comes with it. If you set out only to be famous then you really shouldn't be in the business. Following your current tour what lies ahead for Rick Wakeman? Next year we're going to do some ARW shows which may be sort of a swansong, farewell tour which will probably spread into 2021 as a big thank you to the fans who supported ARW. There's a few other things in the pipeline but ARW will take precedent and it will absolutely come to the US. Grumpy Old Rock Star. Around about August 1948, Mr and Mrs Cyril Wakeman had an early night and some time later, at Perivale in Middlesex, Mrs Wakeman produced a bonny baby son. They named him Richard, but he quickly became known as Rick. Rick was a likeable little fellow who had a talent for the piano and for making trouble. Music became Rick's life - he joined a popular music group called Yes and became a legend. Much later he became a Grumpy Old Man who appears on Countdown , hosts a hugely popular radio show on Planet Rock and performs a one-man show telling stories about his rather extraordinary life. Which is where this book you are holding comes in. Mr Wakeman is simply one of the great storytellers of our age - let's face it, he has some fabulous material. It seemed a shame that some of the funniest yarns should not be more widely known. So he accepted some cash and here we are. Curl up by the fire with a Grumpy Old Rock Star and your nearest and dearest. We defy you not to want to read it aloud and laugh.