Avtor: Aleš Podbrežnik
Kraj: European Bike Week / Faaker See (Faak Am See, Villach) / Avstrija
Datum koncerta: 09.09.2011
Število obiskovalcev: 5000
Cena karte: 0,00€ (brez vstopnine!)
Uriah Heep are one of those legendary bands that midwifed rock and raised it through its first steps, when it climbed out of its cradle. The years have rolled by, and the story of this gutsy band has grown into a kind of legend in the meantime. Only a handful of the dinosaurs who showed up on the rock map at the turn of the sixties into the seventies are still active, and Heep have outlasted the rest. On top of that, Uriah Heep are finally back in full swing when it comes to making new original music, after a decade of abstinence. In 2008 they released a kind of comeback album in that sense (even though they never stopped playing live), the excellent, rustic-sounding “Wake The Sleeper”, and they confirmed their rediscovered inspiration this year with the release of the very handsome new studio effort “Into The Wild”, which keeps the spirit of retro-nostalgia alive. Uriah Heep are one of those bands that are always out on the stage. The burden of the years just won’t stick to them, and on stage Uriah Heep come across as unbreakable, eternal youngsters.
Uriah Heep have been on stage non-stop this year since February. The album “Into The Wild” came out in April. Pretty much at the same time as the new album dropped, they kicked off a new promo tour in support of it. They worked through the concert stops across the old continent in detail back in May, then hopped across the pond to the other side of the Atlantic and even further south, below the equator. Four months after our last stop in Ternitz, Austria, where Heep played a show on 14.05.2011, they turned around in the blink of an eye, and so the second leg of the “Into The Wild” tour was born. The first date was set for this year’s European Biker’s Week, which takes place every year by Faaker See near Faak Am See, close to Villach, and whose main sponsor is Harley Davidson, with some funds also chipped in by the maker of the sweetly sinful liquor Jack Daniels. Let’s mention that this, one of the biggest Harley Davidson festivals on the planet, is no stranger to Uriah Heep, since they already played the very same venue six years ago, on 09.09.2005 to be exact.
The draw for the grand prize, a one-of-a-kind handmade Harley Davidson, which is definitely not a wall macramé, drove a crowd of some 6-8000 bikers up to the stage before the show, all of them feverishly counting down the seconds until the lucky name was announced. Once the draw was done, the crowd, against expectations this time, didn’t scatter. People simply stayed put in front of the stage to wait for the legendary rockers.
For Heep this was just another routine gig, and yet they made no secret of feeling great and being in a seriously cheerful mood. What surely got them there was the outstanding turnout and the boiling heads in the front rows, where a handful of fired-up Slovenes who made the trip to this show were happily swaying along too.
In terms of sound, the Uriah Heep show only owed some fixes at the start, so during Rainbow Demon (yes, you read that right!) the sound got dialed in, and Lanzon’s keyboards finally sat in the mix as equals. Bernie Shaw talked to the crowd more intensively than usual, charmingly using a self-taught mix of German and English. In front of the stage, a sea of people as far as the eye could see, above it a clear night sky lit by a full moon and decorated with trillions and trillions of shining stars. The smell of burnt oil and petrol fumes, leather chicks, beer flowing in waterfalls all around, a paradise for rock n’ roll!
Uriah Heep proved once again how brilliantly tight they are and what a shining form they’re in after more than 40 years of existence. They seemed incredibly relaxed and carefree, visibly enjoying themselves, which showed above all in guitarist Mick Box’s generous banter with the crowd, and above all in the ferocity of drummer Russell Gilbrook, who with his dedication and commitment attacked the drums like a pit bull breaking off its chain to chew through every cymbal and drumhead. Russell for president! Shaw went easy on his vocals, especially in the highest registers. The tour is still going to be a long one, after all. After the Faak Am See show, Heep head off to Scandinavia, in October there’s another jump across the pond, followed by a return to a few dates across the old European continent, and in December they’ll tour Great Britain too. Nothing is booked for November yet, so it could be filled with extra dates around Europe.
Back to the stage! Gilbrook had a slightly stripped-down drum kit on stage. The gong behind his back was missing too, along with a cymbal or two. Anyway, the set list was tailored to the taste of less demanding bikers! So new tracks and tracks from the iron-clad repertoire, which means total “wreckage”! Well, given the nature of the event, the set list was a bit shorter. Heep cut the new Kiss Of Freedom and the classic Bird Of Prey from it. In terms of punch and rolling out classic after classic, Bird Of Prey should have stayed in the set, and to save minutes they’d have been better off dropping Nail On The Head, which, with its constant repetition of a trivial chorus, comes off as downright dumb and annoyingly pecking. Whatever, the connoisseurs got their money’s worth too, with the performance of the “Demons & Wizards” classic Rainbow Demon, though the band deserves a rap for their total ignorance of the album “The Magician’s Birthday”.
The band is killing it on stage. Once again they shook and convinced in the fullest sense of the word with the marching tunes of their iron-clad repertoire! The stretched-out jam in both Look At Yourself classics, the title track and July Morning, once again stands out in the set, as does the evergreen, elemental fury of the rolling Gypsy riff. The band shifts down a gear when they tackle the other “Demons & Wizards” classic, The Wizard, but the regular set is over quickly, after July Morning, when Mick Box picks up the acoustic guitar again and the band once more gets the dense front-of-stage crowd of the festival singing along intensively with the inevitable Lady In Black.
For the encore the lineup calls a few of the most fanatical fans from the front rows up on stage to burn off the excess adrenaline in their blood right there, shaking their bodies wildly and banging their heads, while the band rasps through the red-hot riff of “Innocent Victim”, the classic Free N’ Easy. And just like that we’re at the end of the show. Here comes the expected Easy Livin’. The band once again goes into the final minutes of the show with great vehemence, the vocal harmonies work flawlessly this time too, Bolder sings along once more, in a chorus of all five members, with Hensley’s high vocal lines adding that authenticity and closeness to the studio original of one of the biggest hits of Uriah Heep’s career.
The band is holding an incredible form. They came to the festival rested and hungry for gigging again, and so they delivered another excellent show. Clearly the great turnout, which fired the band up even more, did its part, as did the ambience itself, surrounded by a small sea of gorgeous steel ponies! So the orchestra of orchids holds together and keeps pushing on. In the second half of September, after a series of official live bootlegs, Uriah Heep will also release an official double live album, “Live In Armenia”, which only proves how active and vital the legends are in their golden years. Let me also add that entry was free, which means that all fans of classic rock have good reason to be sincerely sorry if they didn’t reserve this Saturday for this year’s edition of the “biker’s week” festival, for a real get-together with the magic of Uriah Heep rock!
fotografije: Martin Prezelj & D.D.D. (Dr. Dobra Duša)
Setlist
1. Intro 2. I’m Ready 3. Return To Fantasy 4. Stealin’ 5. Rainbow Demon 6. Money Talk 7. Drum solo 8. Nail On The Head 9. The Wizard 10. Into The Wild 11. Gypsy 12. Look At Yourself 13. July Morning 14. Lady In Black —encore— 15. Free N’ Easy 16. Easy Livin’
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