Uriah Heep Cast Their Spell Over Prague in the Grand Finale of Their 50th-Anniversary Celebrations!
Location: Prague / Forum Karlin / Czech Republic
Date: Saturday, 10 December 2022
Everything was going according to plan. The October one. Right up until Uriah Heep started their ‘experimenting’ and ‘rethinking’, cutting short the part of the tour that was supposed to run through October — shifting some of those October dates to December. Cutting it short also meant cancelling a few show dates. Unfortunately, the Zagreb date was among them — Uriah Heep were supposed to play there on 25 October 2022. No replacement date was scheduled. Belgrade also got the short end of the stick. So there was always a quiet hope simmering somewhere in the background that one might take a few days’ trip to the Czech Republic, and while indulging in the full scope of the local beer-and-food debauchery, casually squeeze in a show by a band whose run of dates was part of a tour marking Uriah Heep’s 50th anniversary. Two years late. And they weren’t the only ones. But that’s an old story and it’s not worth getting into anymore.
Anyway. Turns out the plan was doable. This time without begging for press credentials and other perks (photo pass). Like in the old days. When pure enthusiasm is what drives you to shows. Forum Karlin is a seriously spacious venue — it can pack in up to 3,000 people. The show wasn’t quite that packed — roughly half that number turned up — but in recent years interest in this iconic British hard rock outfit and their work has picked back up again, something we noticed especially at their February 2019 shows, as Uriah Heep started playing increasingly larger venues. Places that hold a few thousand. Headlining solo. The merch stand has also gotten considerably more stocked since then.
Same story here. The big pull for catching at least one date on this tour was first and foremost the 50th-anniversary celebration. Why? Because the band stretched their setlist and really loaded it up. A typical Uriah Heep show usually runs to sixteen, maybe seventeen songs at most. This time it was a different story — the full run time came out to nearly two and a half hours.
The first part gave us 40 minutes of acoustic show. Before each classic, the band sketched out its history — the story behind how each song came to be. That duty fell to the undisputed, indestructible first Gandalf of rock and roll, guitarist Mick Box, and vocalist Bernie Shaw. Some of the first-set songs nostalgically brought back memories of the band’s last acoustic tour, which also wound through Europe in December 2004 (we caught that one at Georg Elser Halle in the heart of Munich, a sort of Bavarian equivalent of Ljubljana’s Cankarjev dom). The opener, the breezy and infectiously catchy Circus — a song Heep don’t normally play live — confirmed it right away. The band brought it back into the setlist after 16 years. They’re also rarely heard doing Tales, the mystical gem from “The Magician’s Birthday”, but this time round we got to hear it live again. Then came one of their bigger hits, the kind that rallies the crowd and gets everyone singing — Free Me — followed by the heartbreaking and flawless ballad adaptation of The Weavers classic Come Away Melinda (find it on Uriah Heep’s debut “Very ‘Eavy, Very ‘Umble”), and the absolute surprise of the evening: an acoustic take on Confession, a classic from “High And Mighty” (1976). Insane. “High And Mighty”, an unjustly overlooked and largely ignored album in their live setlist, finally got some love from the band itself. It was performed by just Bernie and Phil Lanzon, who masterfully led its closing moments into yet another “The Magician’s Birthday” classic — one of the most beautiful ballads in the entire Uriah Heep catalogue, the flawless Rain.
“Demons And Wizars”, one of the most prominent achievements in the entire Heep catalogue, released in 1972 — a dream year for the band (they put out two studio albums that year, including “The Magician’s Birthday”) — got its moment in the spotlight through a special medley of abbreviated and merged The Wizard, Paradise and Circle Of Hands. That Lady In Black would close out the acoustic set was something almost everyone could have predicted in advance. It delivered one of the first real atmosphere peaks of the night at Forum Karlin. Heep normally save that classic for the obligatory encore. This time they got it out of their system after just 40 minutes.
Bernie had explained early on that bands usually bring along another act to warm up the crowd before the main event. This time, though, Heep warmed themselves up. They were their own support act. In acoustic fashion. Couldn’t ask for more. So it was no surprise that the band decided to kick off the show as early as seven in the evening.
The electric set opened with a phenomenal Against The Odds (“Sea Of Light”, 1995), immediately firing on all cylinders and jolting the crowd wide awake. This half of the show also had a few unexpected surprises up its sleeve. Most notably the return of the “Demons And Wizards” classic Traveller in Time, then Sweet Loraine (“The Magician’s Birthday”, 1972), and the excellent more recent What Kind Of God (“Wake the Sleeper”, 2008), which in a setlist like this delivered a firm nod toward the progressive rock elements that Uriah Heep have always loved to dabble in. The hard-hitting “Sonic Origami” (1998) classic Between Two Worlds also kept the momentum going at an exceptional level.
The band plays brilliantly. They make smart use of the generous stage. It’s just phenomenal watching Mick Box, who takes limitless pleasure in performing even at a solid 75 years of age, throwing on skull-printed tees and going absolutely full-throttle on his guitar. He remains unstoppable. Like he’s 25. Within his generation, Box is today — unless Ozzy and Iommi happen to reunite in Black Sabbath — almost certainly the loudest rock musician in the galaxy. If there was any doubt, Free ‘n’ Easy put it to rest. Nothing gets past him. The seasoned routine of a genuine one-of-a-kind. The unique quality on which the music of Uriah Heep largely rests — and since 1980, you could say entirely. Box has, in his own right, been at least as big an icon for years now as the band’s name itself. The rejuvenated rhythm section remains enormously engaged, explosive, sharp, and wound up tight. Then there’s Phil Lanzon, the ever-reliable and unerring keyboard wizard who again shone brightly in the beautiful epic classic July Morning (one of the consistent highlights in that song being Mick Box’s extended outgoing guitar solo). Bernie Shaw has been the band’s indispensable lead voice throughout all these years. This evening too, simply put, his positivity kept the whole crowd in a great mood throughout. You can tell the singer has lost some of his upper range over the years, but he’s so skilled and seasoned that he brilliantly reworks the melodies in the vocal lines, always managing to sidestep the parts he hit with effortless ease back in the eighties. You also have to factor in that the current tour schedule is incredibly packed, and we’re at its grand finale with only a handful of shows left. Bernie is probably counting the days until he can give his vocal cords a proper rest. But the quintet backs him up solidly with multi-part vocal harmonies, which certainly takes a lot of the pressure off the vocalist in the trickier stretches.
With the inclusion of the dark and mysterious Rainbow Demon, the band had worked through nearly all of “Demons And Wizards” during the set (only Poet’s Justice was missing). The iron-clad setlist classics — Sunrise, Stealin’, and of course the timeless closing number July Morning — kept the atmosphere at an exceptional pitch, the whole venue crackling with energy throughout. The encore wasn’t hard to predict. Phil Lanzon’s legendary Hammond intro slowly led the song into focus — one of the most thunderous and piercing guitar phrases in the history of heavy metal pioneering. It was, of course, the monstrous Gipsy, which for the grand finale of this marathon set gave way to the most eagerly and hotly anticipated Easy Livin’, with which the band took their leave from the sprawling stage of Prague’s Forum Karlin.
Before signing off, Bernie didn’t forget to mention that in 2023 the band would be back with a new album, “Chaos & Colour”, and new shows. In the shape they’re in — as we experienced first-hand at their Prague show — there’s really nothing left for them to do but keep playing with that same relentless drive and keep entertaining and spoiling their fans in the finest possible fashion. That said, it’s worth noting they could hang it up at any point — they’ve got 52 years behind them. But the story isn’t stopping, and there’s still plenty of fuel in the tank, along with a certain unrotted (youthful) fire. Long may it stay that way.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photography: Aleš Podbrežnik & Edita Klemen (photos no. 4, 5, 30 & 31)
Setlist:
Acoustic set
1. Circus
2. Tales
3. Free Me
4. Come Away Melinda (orig. The Weavers)
5. Confession
6. Rain
7. The Wizard / Paradise / Circle of Hands
8. Lady in Black
—15-minute break—
Electric set
9. Against the Odds
10. The Hanging Tree
11. Traveller in Time
12. Between Two Worlds
13. Stealin’
14. Too Scared to Run
15. Rainbow Demon
16. What Kind of God
17. Sunrise
18. Sweet Lorraine
19. Free ‘n’ Easy
20. July Morning
—encore—
21. Gypsy
22. Easy Livin’
