In May 2009 Rick performed a pair of concerts as a one-off event at Hampton Court Palace. With 2009 being the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII’s accession to the throne, Rick was invited by Historic Royal Palaces to present the public with the first performance in its entirety of his iconic album The Six Wives Of Henry VIII first released in 1973 which has sold over 15 million copies! For the event Rick also  performed 3 new pieces. ‘Defender of The Faith’ about Henry was based on an original track that never made it to the album (simply because there wasn’t enough room on vinyl!), ‘Tudorture’ and ‘Tudorock’.

Rick was ably accompanied by The English Rock Ensemble (Adam Wakeman - Keyboards, Tony Fernadez - Drums, Dave Colquhoun - Guitar, Pete Rinaldi - Guitar, Jonathan Noyce - Bass Guitar and Ray Cooper - Percussion), The English Chamber Choir and Orchestra Europa (conducted by Guy Protheroe). Narration was provided by the ever affable Brian Blessed (or should I say BRIAN BLESSED!!!)

Support for the evenings came in the guise of The English Chamber Choir followed by ‘The Acoustic Strawbs’.

With the rear facade of the palace behind the stage providing the fantastically atmospheric backdrop the near 5000 capacity crowd both nights had a spectacle and a half.

Classic Pictures recorded the concert on Saturday 1st (shot in HD!) and this will be available soon.

Concert Live also recorded the audio and made this available at the end of each night.  Along with 2 CDs of music, they included a third CD of my photos taken and burnt to disc before the end of the show. Unfortunately because of the logistics of burning the hundreds of CDs, this meant that the purchasers only had around 40 pictures and most of these were from that day’s soundcheck and early on in the concert.

I was joined on the Friday evening by my friend Simeon Dawes who came along to assist in taking photos to capture the occasion. His photos are marked accordingly and I’d like to say a big thank you to Simeon for allowing me to show them to you here alongside mine.

Anyway, enough words, I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking...

Rehearsals

Sound Checks

Before the shows

and the support

Six Wives

If you’d like a copy of the DVD you can order one here via PayPal or if you’d like to buy one via another method, please contact me.