Fresh from a soundcheck onstage at Peel’s Centenary Centre, Adam Wakeman sat laughing, telling me how he literally mistook the broom cupboard for the dressing room.

It made it seem all the more funny, given that just one month before, Adam was onstage, playing with heavy metal legends Black Sabbath in front of 50,000 people.

The son of world famous musician and prog-rock superstar Rick Wakeman has spent the past 20 years touring the world alongside some of the most famous faces in the world of rock and pop.

He has been a mainstay in Ozzy Osbourne’s backing band, playing keyboards alongside the legendary singer for nearly 13 years, and has spent the past eight years playing keyboards for the mighty Black Sabbath, following Ozzy after he rejoined the godfathers of heavy rock. When the genre-defining group finally called it a day with an emotional final gig at their home town of Birmingham on February 4, Adam was onstage alongside them.

Fast forward almost a month later, and Adam is sat sipping coffee, looking forward to playing a concert just yards from where he lived as a teenager in a flat above Wakeman’s Music Emporium, a music shop owned by his father, in Atholl Place.

And, as unlikely as it sounds, he believes that his experiences spent playing in the pubs around the island in his mid-teens with Spectrum, alongside the well-known figure of keyboardist and soundman Anglin Buttimore, were instrumental in his success as a professional musician.

’Certainly, with anybody my age, you learnt your craft by playing in pubs, and for me, it was in the Isle of Man,’ he said.

’I moved here when I was 16, got into a band with Anglin, and we played two nights minimum every week for the whole two and a half years I lived here. That was the best grounding I ever had.

’People like Anglin were so integral to my music direction. My dad was obviously a massive influence on me, but Anglin is a fantastic pianist. He is a great boogie-woogie piano player, and I had no idea about that style of playing at all.

’He taught me how to play that stuff, and about people like Dr John. He really shaped that whole direction of my music. I never told him that, though. I’ll probably tell him crying over a whisky later on.’

He added: ’But those experiences, when some one influences your life like that, it leaves an impression.

’I guess he was also like a dad to me, as my real dad was away touring a lot at the time.

’I spent a lot of time with the Spectrum guys doing these gigs, and they helped mould me as a musician.

’I was playing in a social club with people shouting "that’s rubbish", and as a 16-year-old, you have to harden up.

’I went on to work with my dad afterwards, but that time spent playing more than 200 gigs here made sure I wasn’t like a deer in the headlights.’

When Adam moved away from the island aged 19, having completed his A levels at the Queen Elizabeth II High School in Peel, he went straight out on tour with his dad, performing as Wakeman and Wakeman, recording and touring each year until his mid-20s.

He then began to work as a session musician, performing with pop musicians such as Atomic Kitten, Robbie Williams and Tony Hadley, and Scottish indie band Travis, before fate intervened and he had a chance meeting with Sharon Osbourne after playing with Annie Lennox at a show in Los Angeles.

’I chatted to her after a show,’ he laughed, before revealing how an email mix up almost meant that he never received his golden opportunity.

’A month later, I was clearing out the junk mail folder in my emails, and there was a message there from Sharon, asking me to play with Ozzy!

’I literally found this email the day before it would have been deleted forever. I phoned them back and, after explaining why it took me a month to get back to them, they asked me to go on tour with Ozzy.

’Then, when Ozzy rejoined Black Sabbath, he took me with them. And that was that - 13 years ago.’

Looking back on the experience, the 42-year-old said: ’Playing with Ozzy and Sabbath is a schoolboy dream, though. I grew up playing Iron Man in school bands.

’With Black Sabbath I play the keyboards off to the side of the stage. But Tony Iommi decided he wanted more rhythm guitar in the show, so I ended up play three quarters of the show on guitar.

’Playing Iron Man with Tony was weird, and I never thought I would have ended up alongside him, and with Tony telling me to play more too.

Adam said that despite the range of venues and crowds he’s experienced, he sees no difference between playing in front of thousands of people or just 50, as long as he is happy with how he performs.

He explained: ’I did a gig up in Kinross, a tiny little place, to less than 50 people recently, and it was a brilliant night.

’It’s all music - and it affects people all the same way, whether you are playing to one person or a 100,000, that’s what its all about.’

Saturday’s night’s concert at Peel’s Centenary Centre - see review in this week’s Manx Independent - may seem like light years away from the rock star life he has enjoyed with Black Sabbath but, with playing the smaller, more intimate concerts it is clear that it is a side of the industry that Adam, who has managed to stay wonderfully ego-free despite being surrounded by the trappings of success, clearly enjoys.

The father-of-three said: ’One of the differences in touring with Sabbath is that you stay in New York, and they charter a plane. You’ll do a gig in Boston, and fly back to New York at night. You leave your hotel room at 3pm, and you are back in your bed at one in the morning.

’It’s the same in the UK, only a bit weirder. Say, if we do a festival in Germany, I’ll leave my house at two in the afternoon, do the festival, and fly back. I’ll be creeping back to bed, trying not to wake my wife and kids up at one in the morning. It’s a funny old existence.’

Turning to the task in hand and performing Saturday’s gig, he said: ’But tonight is great, and something we don’t always get to do.

’We’ll do the gig and then go the Whitey for a couple of beers afterwards. That’s how I like it.’

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REVIEW: Adam Wakeman and Damian Wilson

A sold-out crowd turned out to welcome Adam Wakeman and his song writing partner Damian Wilson back to Peel.

And it’s possible that, given the impressive heavy rock pedigree of both performers, no one expected a concert quite like this.

Musically, anybody who had heard Wakeman and Wilson’s latest album ‘Weir Keepers Tales’, would know that their music is a departure from any of the bands that either of the two are connected with. They collaborate together in the prog rock band ‘Headspace’.Adam is well documented as a session musician playing with heavy metal legends Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne and Damian was once touted as the replacement for Bruce Dickenson in legendary metal outfit Iron Maiden.

Instead, Wakeman and Wilson together played a set of songs with surprising delicacy and tenderness, and really gave both musicians a chance to show off their amazing skills. Damian possesses a singing voice of incredible range, dexterity and power, able to croon softly, and without obvious effort, raising his voice through the octaves to operatic levels.

Adam’s piano playing is slick and beautiful, and a joy to listen to, and his voice was a fine contrast to Wilson’s. Songs such as the album’s title track, ‘People Come and Go’ and ‘Seek for Adventure’, together with ‘Catch You When you Fall’ and a beautiful piece of piano composition, played by Adam and written alongside his father, Rick, demonstrated jaw-dropping talent.

That was expected, though. I don’t think, however, that anybody anticipated the pure comedy value that would be on offer as well. Onstage, Adam and Damian were more like two mates who just happened to be able to play wonderful songs together. Damian rattled off story after story, dropping anecdotes and jokes about their lives in music, and seemingly impervious to Adam’s instruction to ‘shut up and play the songs’. Damian became more animated through the show, jumping off stage and singing with the crowd. At one point, in the middle of one story, Adam got up from his piano, grabbed a broom and started to sweep the stage floor.

The night ended just as bizarrely, with the Peel crowd gently singing the chorus to an acoustic sing-along version the Iron Maiden song, ‘The Evil That Men Do’, something that I, who grew up as a pretty isolated heavy metal fan in Peel many decades ago, never, ever thought would be remotely possible.

It was a great night with great music and wonderful banter between the musicians and crowd, genuinely funny and balancing finely on the edge of utter lunacy.

I could have watched it all night.