While Rick Wakeman may be best known to some for his appearances on TV’s Grumpy Old Men series, he is of course a keyboard virtuoso with a deep well of on the road anecdotes from the early 60s onwards.
Many are collected here over 200 pages in an easily digestible narrative, retold as if Rick were raconteuring over a curry and a pint (as this writer was once lucky enough to do – and he hasn’t even included his golf tale as “Rock Wankman”). Here he recounts amusing tales of acquiring a KGB uniform; drinking a plane dry twice en route to Japan; writing brewerysize riders, with salted peanuts at the end, “but not crucial”; converting his vegetarian Yes band mates to the joys of meat; seeing Alan White get trapped in a Spinal Tap pod; having a heart attack at 25 – twice; playing in a circus with Salvador Dali; watching Keith Moon trash a Melbourne restaurant; gatecrashing Chopin’s park in Communist Poland; giving up drink after losing three stone in three weeks; and chatting with Ronnie Biggs and Fidel Castro. With plenty of moving moments and nostalgic reflections to boot, it’s a page-turner guaranteed to cheer up any old grump.
