Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Uriah Heep
Label: Classic Rock Productions
Release: 2002
Rating: 3.5/5
This live recording from the sold-out Shepperds Bush Empire (London) is something really special. The current Uriah Heep lineup, the most stable in the band’s history (Box/Lanzon/Kerslake/Bolder/Shaw) and unchanged since 1986, was joined on stage by two eminent guests. Former “Heepers”, that is. The first is an original member of the first U.H. lineup, the one that reaped all the glory and wrote itself into eternity in the mid-seventies: the brilliant multi-instrumentalist Ken Hensley, author of many steel-clad “Heep” classics, who left the band after the tour for the “Conquest” album in 1980. The second is the excellent John Lawton (ex-Zar, Lucifer’s Night) on vocals, who sang with the band from September 1976 to October 1979. By the way, John Lawton visited us in Postojna on 10.08.2002. Both of these eminent gentlemen still put out outstanding solo albums today, so they’ve stayed musically active all along.
Ken joins the band on stage with his Hammonds for “July Morning”. The people in the hall jump with excitement, and for the first time you can clearly hear the whole audience joining in on the lines about the July morning. The whole atmosphere is incredible. The backing vocal lines with Ken really take us back to the sound of the seventies, when the band was at its peak.
The show opens with the galloping “Return To Fantasy” and continues with “Tales”, played with real emotion and given its special stamp by the flute. The superb backing vocals are once again an indispensable constant. A female trio, who work brilliantly with the band throughout the set, makes sure they win the day completely. The only newer “number” is “Sweet Pretender” (from the album Sonic Origami, 1998); everything else is pure seventies. It’s hard to choose, but I still have to single out the performance of “Paradise/Spell”. It’s pure magic again, proof that Uriah Heep are a band that, and I say this with a clear conscience, sound even better live than on their studio records. The highlight of the show is without a doubt “Magician’s Birthday”. The psychedelic middle section is somewhat shortened. After that instrumental middle part the crowd gets livelier again. That’s when John Lawton joins the band on stage on vocals, kicking off the verse “I challenge you, I challenge you all,…” with full force, yet incredibly heartfelt and sensual. Together with Bernie, he takes “Magician’s Birthday” all the way home. John also takes part on stage during “Sympathy” and the cranked-up “Free’n’Easy”. After that, the melancholic “Sunrise” has been added to the setlist. As the crowd expected, they close the show with “Easy Livin'”, which Bernie sang absolutely brilliantly to wrap up this one-of-a-kind get-together.
I forgot to mention two more classics that they “dusted off”. “I’ll Keep On Tryin'” from the Uriah Heep debut and “Circle Of Hands” from the album “Demons And Wizards”, which catapulted the band among the immortals in 1972. This is the fourth live release since the studio Sonic Origami. The setlists of the live releases Acoustically Driven (2001), Electrically Driven (2001), Future Echoes Of The Past (2001) and this very release that I’m describing to you so vehemently differ from one another, which is a nice bonus. At their most mature, Uriah Heep are inoculated against the “Iron Maiden syndrome”. The excuse that bands trot out in interviews when asked why they play pretty much the same setlist on tour every year: “You just forget the songs!” doesn’t work for Uriah Heep. It’s obvious that the fairy tale is nowhere near its end.
Lineup
Bernie Shaw – vocals
Mick Box – guitar, backing vocals
Lee Kerslake – drums, backing vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass guitar, backing vocals
Phil Lanzon – keyboards, backing vocals
Guest musicians:
Ken Hensley – organ, backing vocals, guitar)
John Lawton – vocals
Thijs van Leer – flute
Emma Robbins, Kim Chandler, Aileen McLaughlin – backing vocals
Production
Pip Williams
Track list
1. Return Fantasy
2. Tales
3. Sweet Pretender
4. I’ll Keep On Trying
5. July Morning
6. Paradise / The Spell
7. Circle Of Hands
8. The Magician’s Birthday
9. Sympathy
10. Free ‘N’ Easy
11. Sunrise
12. Easy Livin’
Running time: 74:31
