Rolling Stone, January 30, 1974
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE STAGE
By Cameron Crowe

[part TWO of four]

The backstage area, as always, is a visual cacophony of stray orchestra, choir 
and band members of all ages, sizes and colors.  Head in hands, a rumpled 
David Measham (who has, on occasion, conducted the London Symphony Orchestra 
and otherwise tried to marry classical forms to rock, as on Neil Young's Harvest) 
sits off in a corner.  Rick wanders over.  "Are you all right?"

Long pause.  "Yeah."

"Sure?"

"I guess."  Measham rubs a day-old stubble and whimpers, "Somebody put 
something in my drink last night."

"Oh yeah?"  Rick is worried, suddenly.  "What do you think it was?"

"Alcohol."

After several years as the only meat-eating boozer among Yes's health-watching 
vegetarians, Wakeman took great pains to make his first tour strictly an 
alcoholic one.  No drugs, no smoke - just booze, booze and more booze.  He is 
the beer drinker's beer drinker;  No fussing over brands, anything from the 
tap will do.  The musicians are rated in the official concert program according 
to their drinking prowess.  And if the mountainous backstage stash of beer, 
wine and tequila isn't enough, everyone repairs to the hotel bar for a marathon.  
Predictably, every soundcheck is spotted with several badly hungover musicians 
who swear that their drinking days are over.  Predictably, they're to be found 
again at 11:30 at the hotel bar.

"In most situations where an artist has brought a completely independent 
orchestra on the road with him, the musicians simply collect their pay and 
perform with clinical, but detached perfection."  Tour coordinator Bob Angles 
talking, who was responsible for assembling the orchestra on two weeks' 
notice.  "This time the players are so enthused that they're even adding 
their own embellishments to the music.  They think Rick is a genius.  They love him."

One senses in Measham's pal-ish attitude the same level of respect, though in 
conversation he's more likely to be complaining about untended business in 
London - TV commitments and the Symphony - than talking about the tour.

The camaraderie is not surprising, considering that Wakeman is far from the 
temperamental artiste.  He knows the nicknames of the 70-odd musicians 
and keeps track of intraorchestra romances, playfully chiding the blushing 
participants.  The mood is infectious.  It's summer camp and nobody wants to go home.

"Rick," Angles continues, "is your basic nice guy.  He'll never say no.  The 
other night he spent a couple of hours in the dressing room talking with 
some people like they were old friends.  The next morning I asked them who 
they were.  He told me he had no idea."


There is no opening act for Wakeman's two-hour show.  The first set opens 
with two numbers from the band, a sextet of unknown British musicians (Jeffrey Crampton 
on guitars, Roger Newell on bass, Barney James on drums, John Hodgson on percussion 
and Garry Pickford-Hopkins and Ashley Holt handling vocals).  Some members of this band 
performed with the London Symphony Orchestra on the live recording session of Journey 
earlier this year.  By the time Wakeman emerges, only to disappear behind his bank of 
keyboards, mellotrons and synthesizers, the Pittsburgh audience is wild.  They applaud 
the various Henry VIII excerpts that make up most of the first hour's music.  A 
Charleston sendup, complete with four strobe-lit dancing flappers, leads into the 
break.  If this audience is any indication, Wakeman's fans seem far from a curious 
fleet of Yes addicts.  "Hell, I've got both his albums," one 23-year-old college 
student says.  "I like Yes too, but it seems to me that they can't decide between 
keeping or alienating all the 14-year-olds.  It's all good music, though.  It's new 
music.  That's what interests me most."

The second set, reserved entirely for Journey to the Centre of the Earth, 
finally incorporates Measham and company (the choir and orchestra file on 
surprisingly quickly, with no tuba-test interruption), as well as narrator 
Terry Taplin.  Out of the darkness, in an intentionally melodramatic baritone, 
Taplin booms the introduction to Jules Verne's sci-fi classic ...And so the journey 
from Hamburg to Iceland begins.  And the music swells.

Backstage, Angles overrides the music with an explanation for the conspicuous 
absence of actor David Hemmings, who narrated the album.  "Rick and David are 
fabulous friends.  They were really looking forward to being on the road together.  
Two days prior to the tour, though, Hemmings was called away on assignment.  
So with one day left, we found Terry.  The Ed Murrow of Jules Verne he's not, 
but he works out fine onstage.  The only problem is that Terry gets livid when 
the reviews read, 'David Hemming's narration was a bit overpowering, but overall 
the celebrated British star of such films as Blow-Up...' " Angles laughs deviously.  
"We're going to set his chair on fire the last night of the tour."

The complex staging wasn't all fun and games.  Wakeman, intent on foolproofing 
the show, stayed awake for most of the week-long rehearsals in New York.  
"When there's unfinished business," says a friend, "Rick will work at it until it's 
either finished or he collapses."  Usually it's the latter.  During Journey album 
rehearsals he dropped cold.  The diagnosis: complete physical exhaustion.  
Since then he's been hospitalized for serious bouts with ulcers and emphysema.  
He's under doctor's orders to budget his energy and to cut down on a two-pack-a-day 
smoking habit.  He covers even that level of seriousness with a throwaway line:  
"You're as healthy as you feel," he scoffs.  "I feel great.  Care for a smoke?"


[continued in part 3]


Transcribed by yesman 
December 25, 1995