Rick Wakeman announces the Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour

(Image credit: Sergione Infuso/Corbis - Getty)

Rick Wakeman (opens in new tab) has announced that he’ll head out on the road across North America later this year on the Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour.

The keyboard wizard will kick things off at the Maryland Hall For The Creative Arts in Annapolis on September 21, and bring the curtain down at the Playhouse in Ridgefield on October 13.

The tour will “combine spellbinding piano music with side-splitting jokes and revealing insights into his 50-plus-year career.”

A statement on the tour continues: “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.”

Before his North American tour, Wakeman will play two night’s at London’s Royal Festival Hall on July 13 and 14 (opens in new tab), where he’ll revisit his epic live album 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

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers and magazines as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. After initially joining our news desk in the summer of 2014, he moved to the e-commerce team full-time in 2020. He maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott grew up listening to rock and prog, cutting his teeth on bands such as Marillion and Magnum before his focus shifted to alternative and post-punk in the late 80s. His favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Drab Majesty, but he also still has a deep love of Rush.