Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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For the last forty years Rick Wakeman has immersed himself in music. Leaving the Royal College of Music, Rick has worked with some of the biggest names in rock and pop music, playing on some of the biggest hits by artists as diverse as Cat Stevens, Marc Bolan and David Bowie. Likewise, he has played with one of the biggest rock bands in the world. As a member of Yes Rick played some of the biggest arenas in the world and released massively successful albums including Fragile, Close To the Edge and the live Yessongs.

In 1973 he released his first proper solo album The Six Wives of Henry the VIII, following that album up in the seventies and eighties with other hugely popular and successful albums.

In the eighties Rick also recorded albums in the then popular genre entitled New Age.

Releasing such popular albums as The Aspirant Series of recordings (Aspirant Sunrise, Aspirant Sunset and Aspirant Sunshadows). More recently Rick Wakeman has toured with his fellow former Yes musician Jon Anderson. Together they have toured and released one studio album, The Living Tree.

The Video Vault, as the title suggests, is a boxed set of six DVDs covering a number of performances and concerts that had been gathering dust in the Wakeman vaults. As a gift for the ultimate Wakeman fan, this boxed set of DVDs would be an ideal gift. As a collector the box also gathers together a number of key concerts and performances from Rick’s long and varied career.

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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~ gonzomultimedia

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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There were just three performances of King Arthur on Ice and it was “crucified” by most of the media before it had even had its opening night! Amazingly though, the demand from the press and media for tickets was unprecedented and which was met with a total refusal to all who had “pre-reviewed” the event!

It was undoubtedly for me, a high point of my musical career. I was pleased with the music and to this day feel that the main theme is probably the best I have written and will be hard to surpass.

The shows were just great fun and were put on with virtually no outside assistance as very few people believed in it and indeed wanted it to happen. Numerous people, who will remain nameless, tried in vain to get me to do a basic show at the Royal Albert Hall and to “forget all this nonsense about an ice show”!

Ice skating was not popular back in 1975 and so I enlisted the help of some of the world’s greatest skaters from all over the world.

To the best of my knowledge it was also the first time a PA of that size had been “hung” in a venue the size of Wembley Arena. I shipped in a Clair Brothers system from America as there was nothing in the UK that could handle the task.

Thanks to people like Tony Burdfield at A&M Records, my band, the conductor David Measham and the English Chamber Choir, and the foresight of Alan Yentob, who filmed much of the show for the BBC, the memory still lives on.

…And my thoughts now? I’d just love to do it one more time!!!

~ Rick Wakeman

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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This was indeed a very interesting filming as the show was recorded at the Maltings in Farnham in the early evening and was actually broadcast that same evening around 11pm. There is very little on film that includes the brass section of Reg Brooks and the late Martyn Shields and so it was a time when the ERE was going through quite a metamorphism with a new guitar player as well in John “Dusty” Dunsterville, who was a very funny guy in many respects and his rendition, (and altered lyrics), of the Johnny Cash classic, “I Walk The Line” was a regular occurrence on stage and indeed appears toward the end of this concert too!

~ Rick Wakeman

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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To be honest, I don’t remember too much about this particular show except that it was a great period in Europe for rock shows on television and it was quite common to be invited to Scandinavia, Italy, Holland and Germany to do live shows which were broadcast on major network channels at prime time. Watching this performance back reminds me just what a fantastic time it was for musicians back then. Interesting to note that two of the band in this performance (Ashley Holt and Tony Fernandez) and still in the English Rock Ensemble today! (The phrase “Gluttons for punishment” springs to mind) and whilst the sound quality is not the greatest in places, it is a very unique recording and piece of film as to the best of my knowledge this is the only record on either film or audio of this particular line-up of the ERE

~ Rick Wakeman

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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This was a strange era for me. Concept albums and prog rock were at possibly their lowest ebbs and there was I having just recorded a massive concept album, co-written with Tim Rice, and followed it up with a huge prog rock concert at Hammersmith Odeon…..err…..no points Wakeman!

Truth was I just wanted to do what I felt I was best at and not tow the fashion line musically.

It was a very difficult time in my life. I had lost my father a few months earlier, my 2nd marriage was on the rocks and musically I had no idea what was likely to happen to me in the coming months or years and to top it all, the band proved to be one of the few very unhappy line-ups that I had ever put together, although it has to be said that this concert was certainly a highlight.

~ Rick Wakeman

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Back in the early 80s, a wonderful TV series called A Little Night Music, filmed in Birmingham had quite an assortment of musical styles over the weeks that the series ran.

The performance was recorded live at Pebble Mill in Birmingham and a small budget was given to me to do some orchestrations for the additional orchestral musicians that were booked to perform with me. A children’s choir was also brought in for Bedtime Stories, but they were perhaps a little too young and brings to mind the well known saying “Never work with children or animals”! Whilst they were very angelic and looked great, trying to get them to sing at the same time proved virtually impossible, but the piece certainly ended up with a lot of charm.
I recall the evening very well for a very sad reason and that was that Robert Powell, who narrated Gray’s Elegy, had tragically just lost his father to cancer and so Gone But Not Forgotten took on a new and very special meaning that night.

~ Rick Wakeman

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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The Omnibus interview took place shortly after MAM, (Tom Jones management at the time) had commissioned 1984 to become a musical using the music that Tim Rice and myself had written and released on the Charisma label. The album struggled into the top 30 but it was a bad time for concept albums and the media pretty much killed it stone dead, but Tony MacArthur at MAM really believed it would make a great musical and so work commenced on turning the music into a full scale production.
Then a major brick wall was hit at 100mph! The lawyers in Chicago who acted for the George Orwell trust in America, put the complete block on our plans and despite numerous meetings, discussions and attempts to reach some sort of deal, after almost a year, the plans were ditched. To say I was gutted would be to put it mildly. Even more upsetting was the fact that a year later a dreadful film version of 1984 appeared with Richard Burton and some awful 1980’s music that really didn’t do the work justice, and that was the end of my efforts to keep the concept album alive by taking it one step further.

At the end of the Omnibus interview with Barry Norman there is a very unique performance of Elgin Mansions, as it indeed was its premiere. It was shortened somewhat to fit in with the television timeslot, but it’s a rare find indeed.

~ Rick Wakeman

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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Rick Wakeman - Video Vault (2010) [6DVD Box-Set] Re-up

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