Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Lignano Sabbiadoro / Arena Alpe Adria / Italy
Concert date: 31.07.2015
Attendance: 2000
Ticket price: 35,00€
This year’s edition of the Folkest festival, which regularly takes place right next door to Slovenia in Friuli and Venezia Giulia, hit its peak with the announced show by British rock legends Uriah Heep, warmed up by the Italian acoustic duo Harduo.
Just a day before the famous Ferragosto and under a full moon – the second one that July – the venue drew a modest 2000 people, if anything slightly fewer. After a bit of a delay, the Italians Harduo took the stage first, a pair of acoustic guitar wizards named Andrea Varnier and Raffaello Indri. Both hail from the little town of Cerclaria near Udine. They put out their debut “Ovest Hardita Est” in 2008, and in mid-January this year their new studio effort “Adamantis Haurora” came out on Folkest Dischi, which they presented to the crowd at some length – as far as the barely 30 minutes allowed, anyway. We got a heartfelt set of acoustic sweetness, with the guitars gently and harmoniously flowing into each other, full of Mediterranean curiosity and full-blooded improvisation, where you can pick out elements of world music, folk and rock, country, and even neo-classical figures. A lovely little warm-up, then.
Uriah Heep, lined up as Bernie Shaw (vocals), Mick Box (guitar, backing vocals) , Phil Lanzon (keyboards, backing vocals), Dave Rimmer ( bass guitar, backing vocals) and Russell Gilbrook (drums, backing vocals), are still pushing their new studio album »Outsider«, released last June, on this summer’s shows too. The band hit the stage at exactly 10 p.m. and opened the concert with a track from the new record, Speed of Sound, kicked off by a drum intro from the »wild man« Russell Gilbrook. The sound was a bit rough at first, with Dave Rimmer’s bass jumping way too far to the front of the mix, but the sound techs quickly balanced things out to an ear-friendly level.
These long-lived rock legends, still led in their 45th year by the only original founding member, the charismatic and one-of-a-kind guitarist Mick Box, are keeping up the momentum set off by the renaissance-style awakening in 2008, when the band finally released a new studio album, »Wake the Sleeper«, after a ten-year break. Interestingly, the vast majority of the crowd found their spots in the stands and watched the show from up there. The front rows of the floor, no more than ten of them, were filled with the hottest-blooded fans and connoisseurs of the band, who wanted a more intense connection with the show.
The band showed a big dose of healthy routine. They played a ton, maybe even »too much« up to that day, and there’s no hiding among the members. Bassist Dave Rimmer has also slotted into the quintet brilliantly by now. Next to Shaw, he brought by far the most action to the stage, constantly strolling over to Gilbrook in the middle, then a moment later to Lanzon behind him on the right side, and, like everyone else on the team, taking care of the backing vocal harmonies. Whenever Shaw left the stage for a moment, Box and Rimmer would move closer to each other during the intros of the songs, using the center of the stage and keeping the dynamics of the whole show alive.
For all the general talk about how the rock veterans are holding up wonderfully and defying their age, the one thing that slightly spoiled the positive vibe was Shaw’s banter between songs, which revealed that the man is completely at war with numbers and probably flunked history in elementary school. His first slip came when he wrongly announced Stealin’ instead of Sunrise, and as a song written in 1974, which isn’t true. The album »Sweet Freedom«, where Stealin’ appears, came out in 1973. He made the second blunder right before announcing one of the most moving compositions of Uriah Heep’s career, The Hanging Tree, another little gem of this set list, called The Magician’s Birthday, when he again named 1973 as the year it was written. The album »The Magician’s Birthday« actually came out in 1972. While rambling on about release years, Shaw topped off the sloppiness by declaring 1973 the year progressive rock was invented, which puts him off by at least six years if you take the album by The Bealtes, »Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band« (1967), as the landmark starting point for the development of prog rock. Before announcing the “Wake the Sleeper” track What Kind Of God, Bernie did soften his mistakes by admitting he’d always been bad with numbers, since he wasn’t exactly sure when »Wake the Sleeper« came out either. He floated 2009 as the probable year. “Wake the Sleeper” actually came out in 2008. In short, Bernie might want to flip through the Uriah Heep biography from time to time before he opens his mouth so confidently in front of a crowd.
What interests us more is his vocal performance. Over the years his voice has dropped lower, that’s a fact, and it doesn’t pack the same power it once did. Still, the tougher parts, especially the lines in the closing stretch of the demanding The Magician’s Birthday, proved that Bernie still keeps an exemplary range and can still confidently hold his own even against the tougher Hensley melodies. Gilbrook played the drums during The Magician’s Birthday without the kazoo, which was a signature element of his predecessor’s performances, the famous Lee Kerslake.
With The Hanging Tree and The Magician’s Birthday, the set list did hand the spoiled connoisseurs some solid consolation, but overall it features decidedly too many new songs and predictable standards, which, together with the predictable delivery and stage routine, can start to induce indifference or even mid-gig boredom. Whether you’ve seen Uriah Heep twenty-five times, three times or never, that makes a fundamental difference, evoking completely different feelings. The crowd was visibly enjoying it, it’s just a shame the floor wasn’t fuller, as the energy payoff between the audience and the band would have been far more effective and impressive.
So Uriah Heep are holding up just fine. Going forward, it would do the band good to shake up the set list a bit, or record and release a new album with a gentler shift in style and production (maybe closer to »Sea of Light« and/or »Sonic Origami«), because the modern-era »Wake The Sleeper« formula is slowly getting dry and way too predictable. If you haven’t seen these legends live yet, Uriah Heep remain an absolute must on any of your future gig-going plans. Given their years on the road, every show they play these days might well be their last.
Setlist
1. Speed of Sound
2. The Hanging Tree
3. The Law
4. The Outsider
5. Sunrise
6. Stealin’
7. The Magician’s Birthday
8. What Kind of God
9. One Minute
10. Can’t Take That Away
11. July Morning
12. Lady in Black
—encore—
13. Gypsy
14. Easy Livin’
Photo gallery
