Location: Hluk / Sportovni hala / Czech Republic
Date: Saturday, February 16, 2019
After the RockLine stop at the Uriah Heep show in Vienna, on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2019, which some chosen Earthlings about 380 km further south preferred to spend at a Zdravko Ćolić concert, and a day later, on February 15, 2019, when Uriah Heep played with U.D.O. in Prague, RockLine rolled on the next day, February 16, 2019, to Moravia and so, in the town of Hluk, caught yet another show from these venerable, unshakable and one-of-a-kind veterans of rock’n’roll pioneering.
The show went down at the local sports hall (Sportovni hala), where we caught the W.A.S.P. show on November 24, 2017 and have fond experiences and memories of the place. Not as big a venue as Prague’s Forum Karlin the day before, but it can surely cram in about 2,500 people between the floor and the stands. Only the floor was open. One section for the chosen few, the so-called “in front of the stage,” and of course the “rest” of the floor, for everyone who doesn’t handle heavy hits to the wallet too well. At half past eight in the evening, about 1,500 attendees welcomed the locals Reflexy, who enjoy considerable popularity in the Czech Republic. They served up a live mix of their own songs. A career cross-section, in which you can tell the band is very fond of playing covers too, so no wonder a few tricks are borrowed from The Police and even, on the other side of the spectrum, from Thin Lizzy. The band put together a set that the crowd greeted with a roar. They’ve been around for 25 years, have ten studio albums under their belt, and so Reflexy count as a kind of local legend, if not outright pop and rock heroes. The band is based in Uhersko Hradište, a larger town not far from Hluk. Lyrics in Czech. Good sound, a pleasing tightness, a solid approach to songwriting and songs with real substance, charming banter with the crowd from the seasoned Libor Pišek, and so richly deserved, energetic feedback from the audience. A pleasant opening experience, then.
At half past nine in the evening Uriah Heep jumped on stage. The stage in the hall was considerably narrower this time, but all the deeper, and that’s more or less how the band moved on it too. As if this type of stage suits them better. For visibility, certainly. The drums and the Hammonds sit further back too, so the front line of musicians has more room to spread out. Of the last three RockLine get-togethers in a row with the legendary Uriah Heep, the Hluk show came across as the most convincing and intense. Both in terms of performance and in that it delivered exceptionally good sound. This show also got an exceptionally good response, and the venue was very well attended. Not completely packed, but just right to bring on that real, proper rock concert feeling. The band also seemed a notch more relaxed and so showed more mischief and stage cheekiness. That goes especially for Bernie, who wandered around the stage with particular liveliness, moving from his central spot all the way back to the drums, then left to Mick Box and right to Dave Rimmer.
Russell Gilbrook once again attacked his drums with everything he had and hit hard right from the start with his unbridled playing, as the band thundered through the wound-up, brand new and excellent Grazed By Heaven. Everything sat superbly in the sound. Hammond and guitar in just the right balance, yet producing that famous sound that gives the band its special place in rock history. Rimmer often moves closer to Box, and coming out of Look At Yourself the two appear shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the stage with crossed guitars. We weren’t used to that from Mick Box in the years before Dave joined the band. That’s the theatrical element that really fires up the concert atmosphere, so his taking part in the stage shenanigans is all the more welcome. An established practice, but for Uriah Heep its introduction is of somewhat more recent origin.
The band once again played the full set list in Hluk. That’s an hour-and-three-quarters show. There are only fifteen songs on the current set list, encore included, but Uriah Heep in their mature years of course bet everything on the joy of live performance. They build their shows around it, and rightly so. If you add up all the extended jams woven into Rocks On the Road, July Morning and especially the current version of the extended Look At Yourself, and then throw in the still deliberately stretched-out Lady In Black, that theater adds up to at least 30 minutes of playing time. Which means that in that time some other band, well, in this case Uriah Heep too, could have played at least three, if not four, additional songs.
The communication and energy between the new songs from the album “Living The Dream” and the classics from the iron repertoire couldn’t work better than it does on this new tour, because the new songs keep just the right mix of old-school rock “Hammond” heft and exceptional musical polish, delivered on one side by the truly old-school-sounding Knocking At My Door, and on the other by the extremely gripping Take Away My Soul, which is even mildly AOR-leaning in the chorus.
Uriah Heep play brilliantly. Hluk was no different. They don’t give off the feeling of holding anything back. They go in at full throttle. Bernie sang the entire show at an excellent level too. On top of that, the band was rested, having arrived from Prague very early in the morning, and they confirmed it with an exceptionally good stage mood. Of course they carry such a rich bag of experience that even if they’d gotten out of bed on the wrong side, the quality of the later performance wouldn’t have suffered much. That’s what happened, for example, in Vienna, but in Hluk the band literally glowed on stage in all their performing glory. With the energy, focus and dedication the group still shows on concert epics while also recording excellent new original material, there’s no way in hell the one-and-only Mick Box, who turns a venerable 72 this year, and his comrades in the famous and unique “orchestra of orchids” are seriously thinking about musical retirement. So let’s hope the new album “Living the Dream” brings Uriah Heep to a show somewhere near our neck of the woods next year, even if we have to go as far as the Czech Republic for it.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Nataša Pišljar & Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Grazed By Heaven
2. Return To Fantasy
3. Living The Dream
4. Too Scared To Run
5. Take Away My Soul
6. Knocking At My Door
7. Rainbow Demon
9. Waters Flowing
10. Rocks In The Road
11. Gypsy
12. Look At Yourself
13. July Morning
14. Lady In Black
—encore—
15. Sunrise
16. Easy Livin’
