Location: Cirkus Krone / Munich / Germany
Concert date: 11.10.2008
Attendance: 3,500
Ticket price: 30.00€ (seats), 47.00€ (standing)
After 10 long years, we finally got a new Uriah Heep studio album. It’s called “Wake The Sleeper” (2008) – RockLine review HERE. And Uriah Heep have finally fired up a tour in support of a studio record. Where was that last time, 2000 and 2001, when they were pushing Sonic Origami (1998)? Naturally, the fever in a true Heep fan’s heart kept growing and growing. Even though the Vienna date on this tour, “booked” for 06.11.2008, is the more convenient place to catch Uriah Heep, the German leg is always a chapter of its own. For this part of the tour Uriah Heep brought along special guests as openers. Thin Lizzy. The RockLine crew saw them four days earlier in Vienna (RockLine report HERE) and came home largely deflated, shrugging our shoulders.
Cirkus Krone is a one-of-a-kind setting. Circus shows go on there, sure, but it’s a proper building, not a tent, and it boasts excellent acoustics on top of that. After an adrenaline-fueled race against the clock and some serious getting lost in the Bavarian metropolis, I arrived at the box office a few minutes past eight in the evening. Unbelievable. Right at that moment, the familiar thump and roar swept through the hall.
THIN LIZZY: 20.15-21.06
Jailbreak. Thin Lizzy are already playing. The standing tickets were sold out, but seats were still available. For more than 15.00€ less, too. The security guy still wouldn’t let me down onto the floor, but whatever. I settled comfortably into a seat in the stands, mingled with the German folks and gave myself over to the rock spectacle. About 35 meters from the stage, I wondered whether Thin Lizzy would pull off a better show in Germany than the one I’d seen in Vienna four days earlier. Everything was in place. A much better lighting rig, a better hall, a bigger stage and, of course, more people waiting for the band down front. You could feel that the foursome of Sykes, Gorham, Aldridge and DeCosmo were playing with more commitment. All those factors worked in their favor, and yet the surprising thing is that the guys obviously no longer pay much attention to getting their gear dialed in. They’re clearly sloppy with soundchecks, if they even bother before shows. The sound was downright awful. Just like in Vienna. Sykes was hard to hear, Aldridge was again thundering away way too loudly. On top of that, the guitars were far too loud. The three-part harmonies sounded harsh, rasping and muddy, without the softness that the yearning, melancholic melody they built their name on demands at the “peaks” of the main motifs. The same went for the solos of both guitarists. The shaky mix of Sykes’ vocals alone took away from the performance, and the muddled harmonies hammered one more nail into the coffin. The Germans applauded politely, loudly rewarded Aldridge’s solo (completely needlessly, by the way), and were very loud when Sykes commanded it during Boys Are Back In Town, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that Thin Lizzy live are “missing something.” Dancing In The Moonlight came off best, simply because of the sound, not the performance. It calls for less guitar chopping, which, given how cranked both guitars were, was very welcome in that song.
The gig confirmed what I suspected after the Vienna show: the only reason to watch Thin Lizzy is moral satisfaction at seeing Scott Gorham and John Sykes, legends both, up on stage. Things might look very different if Thin Lizzy had kept evolving and recording albums after Lynott’s death. As it is, they seem stunted and wretched today. Closer to a “tribute to Thin Lizzy” band than an actual Thin Lizzy band.
URIAH HEEP: 21.30-23.15
Uriah Heep know all too well how precious the German crowd is to them, because it’s a fair question whether they’d ever have tasted glory and success in their career if the Germans hadn’t discovered them in the early seventies. Uriah Heep approach their German shows with total respect. That’s a known fact, and it’s why a Uriah Heep concert in Germany is an event you really ought to experience at least once in your life.
A gigantic “Wake The Sleeper” backdrop graced the stage, and the show was dedicated to the new record too. During the first three songs they had some trouble with the sound. Trevor Bolder’s bass was mostly inaudible, Mick’s wah-wah literally ran over everyone else on stage, and Wake The Sleeper in particular suffered from slightly disjointed vocal harmonies, which are one of the band’s signature trademarks and a cornerstone of their stage magic.
It was as if they’d heard my grumbling. With the first classic of the night, Stealin’, things clicked into place instantly. The melody stepped up a notch, Bolder’s bass came alive, the vocal harmonies found the right groove. At that point the whole show gained atmosphere, as Stealin’ fired up the people in the hall. At the end of Stealin’, the band’s new drummer Russell Gillbrook carved out some room to maneuver and wrapped up the classic with a solo bit. That’s something new in the Uriah Heep repertoire. Next comes the unbeatable, always majestic salute to the sun. Sunrise. The band kept the magic going, and the multi-part vocal harmonies shone again. Here keyboardist Phil Lanzon took on an even more prominent role in the band. Even though Lee Kerslake’s departure cost Uriah Heep an important backing vocalist, one of the building blocks of that magic, you couldn’t miss it in the sound at all, which was surprising. Would they keep this up now that they were moving on to the trio of Heaven’s Rain, Book Of Lies and Light Of A Thousand Stars? Yes. The new material is well rehearsed. Only Bernie had slight trouble with his voice in the closing sections of Light Of A Thousand Stars, in the last chorus really. So the short break was all the more welcome when his bandmates launched into Gypsy. Once again it was a top-notch performance of a classic, and across the whole set it felt like a kind of high point of the show, despite the stiff competition from the “Wake The Sleeper” material. We hadn’t even caught our breath when another classic followed. Look At Yourself, which didn’t skip a drawn-out jam, where Mick Box and Phil Lanzon especially grabbed the attention while Bernie rested his vocal cords backstage.
The second peak came with one of the best songs from the new record “Wake The Sleeper”. Bernie introduced it as a song about the exodus and genocide of Native Americans, adding that the inspiration came from the battle of Wounded Knee, where in late December 1890 American soldiers carried out a massacre of the Oglala Sioux tribe. The song has two parts with a clear atmospheric divide. In the first part you can enjoy the drama weaving together, with the two main pillars set against each other as counterweights: Bernie’s vocals on one side and Bolder’s bass on the other. In the second part the song breaks through rock intensity into a mood reminiscent of real weeping, screaming, the agony of the helpless, conjured up by Mick Box on his trademark squealing wah-wah guitar. A concert with a setlist like this once again gave the Hammond organ a more prominent role, which keeps or even upgrades the heavy, noisy sound of the band on the new tour. The organ is one of the main carriers of the sound on “Wake The Sleeper,” and in the closing part of the live version of What Kind Of A God it sat perfectly against Box’s wah-wahing.
After that you could tell the crowd had come to hear the Uriah Heep classics. When Bernie enthusiastically announced that the band had decided to play the entire new album, since we’d all had to wait 10 years for it and it only makes sense to give it a proper workout live, plenty of people in the stands grabbed their coats, slipped out of their seats and apparently bolted from the venue. The audience’s numbness was shaken off by the undisputed classic July Morning, in which Uriah Heep again confirmed all their grandeur. Bernie, meanwhile, fully made up for a few slip-ups on the new songs with outstanding melodic “screams” at the end of this one of the finest Uriah Heep classics. The ending was expected and logical. Easy Livin’!
Then came the return to the stage, with Mick Box addressing the German crowd, thanking them for discovering Uriah Heep in the early seventies and so decisively shaping the currents that carried Uriah Heep into the elite of the greatest rock bands of all time. “This song belongs to you no less than it belongs to us. We’ve been playing it at shows ever since 1971,” Box finished, then started strumming his acoustic guitar. Even a deaf and blind person would’ve guessed it. Lady In Black. With band and crowd joining forces.
Uriah Heep feel at home in Germany. The show once more conjured up extraordinary charisma, confidence and rock ‘n’ roll stubbornness. And soon it’ll be 40 years since the start. Uriah Heep surprised everyone by playing the entire “Wake The Sleeper” album, proving how much they trust the German audience, and themselves. The older, well-mannered gentlemen who made up much of the crowd breathed as one with the band, showing incredible loyalty to the lineup. Apart from the early troubles, the sound was excellent, Uriah Heep proved that the new album works great live, and confirmed they’re still in phenomenal live form. You can feel the huge enthusiasm for the new album and a real readiness to promote it. The merch stand was stocked with all sorts of interesting stuff, but the band’s best move, not just for promoting the new album but for their own down-to-earth, non-starry accessibility, was announcing an autograph session after the show. So after the gig the crowd stormed the official merch stand and went especially for the booklet from the “official Wake The Sleeper tour program,” which was tailor-made for collecting the band’s precious signatures. A proper line of people waiting for autographs soon grew in the corridor. About 10 minutes later Box, Bolder, Shaw, Lanzon and Gillbrook sat down at a little table and got to work. They didn’t just brush the fans off routinely either, but took plenty of minutes to chat with them. As always, even after my third Uriah Heep concert experience in Germany, I can conclude that this is where Uriah Heep are always at their strongest. Only the shows in the UK can probably compete with these performances.
Nearing the end of their fourth decade, Uriah Heep are still fresh and energetic on stage, and they definitely wouldn’t have gotten this kind of shake-up without releasing an excellent new album. The magic remains untarnished!
Setlist
THIN LIZZY:
1. Jailbreak
2. Waiting For An Alibi
3. Are You Ready
4. Dancing In The Moonlight
5. Still In Love With You
6. Sha-La-La
7. Drum Solo
8. Emerald
9. Cowboy Song
10. Boys Are Back In Town
—encore—
11. Cold Sweat
12. Black Rose
URIAH HEEP:
1. Intro
2. Wake the Sleeper
3. Overload
4. Tears of the World
5. Stealin’
6. Sunrise
7. Heavens Rain
8. Book of Lies
9. Light of a Thousand Stars
10. Gypsy
11. Look at Yourself
12. What Kind of God
13. Ghost of the Ocean
14. War Child
15. Shadow
16. Angels Walk With You
17. July Morning
18. Easy Livin’
—encore—
19. Lady in Black
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