Location: Vienna (Wien) / Simm City / Austria
Date: Thursday, 14.02.2019
»Living the Dream« is the title of the new and already 25th studio album from the long-lived legends of pioneering rock ‘n’ roll, the indestructible British rockers Uriah Heep. The band is always on tour. Year after year, they never stop. Even when there’s no new album out, they play a whole string of shows every year. That’s the lifestyle of a true rock band, and with Uriah Heep there’s no need to stress the point. Rock’n’roll runs through their veins. To promote the new album, the band already did a hefty European tour last autumn, and this winter they headed out on the second leg. No less extensive, but with a big difference for the average fan of their music in Slovenia. Some of the new tour’s dates were far friendlier location-wise, so they could be caught from Slovenia in a single day (with a return home, of course). That’s how we ended up enjoying their show on 31.1.2019 in the Italian town of Roncade near Treviso, an exclusive club gig, and that was followed by a strategic decision by our outlet to head to Vienna two weeks later, and then some. To link Vienna with two more consecutive Uriah Heep dates in the Czech Republic (Prague, Hluk), but that’s another story.
So, Vienna it is. Simm Citiy, where the famous Glenn Hughes played almost exactly two years ago with his album »Resonate«, was a venue that this time really filled up with people. Against all expectations, since Uriah Heep play Austria all the time. A good two years earlier, the club Szene in Vienna, a considerably smaller venue, was barely filled with some 350 people. This time at least a thousand people showed up at Simm City and the place was seriously packed. The Austrian crowd clearly isn’t as spoiled by “all the great concert offerings” every year as one might think. Evidently the popularity of and demand for Uriah Heep jumped noticeably again with the new album. And the new album really is very, very good. The ventilation did its best too, but even its full capacity couldn’t drive out all the steam and heat that gripped the boiling cauldron of Simm City on this Thursday night out with rock legends.
Warming up the crowd for the opening slot were locals Jay Bow. The hard rockers have been around for a good five years with a handful of original material and a few covers everybody knows by heart, ones even five-year-old kids can sing in their sleep (Rage Against the Machine, Guns N’ Roses). Decent, but with no standout moments that would really stick with a viewer who doesn’t know the band and is seeing them on stage for the first time. Lots of talking between songs and quite a bit of padding, stretching out the choruses of songs like Sweet Child O’ Mine and so on… In short: solid, but forgettable. Way too much padding, too few original songs, and a tactical stretching of the show with lots of chatter between breaks. There are heaps of bands like this. Scuffed-up hard rock with a solid enough performance, decent banter and tightness, a decent vocalist. Only the charisma is missing. Of their own songs they played: Hurricane, You’ll Be Gone, Love Will Set You Free, The Prince Of Darkness, I’m Not A Bluesman and The Moonlit Skies.
The stars of the night, Uriah Heep, were of course the main target of the visit. The band delivered an identical setlist to the one 14 days earlier in Italy and kicked things off with the bristling, wound-up, speedy new song Grazed By Heaven. An excellent opening catalyst that shoots adrenaline into your blood, it was followed by the classic Return to Fantasy. Right from the start, both songs confirmed that Uriah Heep are an incredible live institution that’s hard to knock off the rails. Unbelievably tight and compact. Even though Bernie wasn’t having his best night, it barely showed in the sum total of the feelings they left with the show. The legendary vocalist had some trouble during the set. It showed especially in the quiet passages: in the verse of July Morning he ran a little short of breath at times, same with the verses of Waters Flowin’. He ducked off stage into the wings several times during the concert, and right at the start he made a rather funny entrance, nearly losing the microphone from his hands. But his bandmates “covered” for him with routine and feather-light ease. Uriah Heep are known for their phenomenally tuned vocal harmonies backing the lead vocal. Absolutely everyone takes part in them, and that’s their constant, which co-defines their trademark sound (and style). And this time too, the harmonies really held the fort for Bernie, who wasn’t having quite his best day.
Uriah Heep keep that feeling of eternal youth and unrotted big rock hearts on stage. Partly thanks to the band’s refresh a while back, since the latest additions, Russell Gillbrook and Dave Rimmer, are heavily involved and show incredible drive and whirlwind energy on stage. Gillbrook is a real animal. He tweaked his drum kit a bit for this tour. It’s a touch smaller, and it no longer has the raised toms in the style of passing tom-toms, which used to be his trademark, but his snare is literally demolishing. Rimmer has fully settled into the energy dynamics within the band, his bass is clear and distinct throughout as he steps, with all the color of virtuoso playing, in the footsteps of the outstanding and unforgettable predecessors of top-class bass playing who played for Uriah Heep before him, three of them now gone: Gary Thain, John Wetton and of course Trevor Bolder.
For someone in his seventies, Mick keeps his stately presence, ease, softness and refinement. His famous wah-wah sings like a nightingale in the solos, and his trademark guitar sound is distinctive and one of a kind. Paired with the beefy Hammond lines of the extraordinary virtuoso Phil Lanzon, Mick and Phil create that unique Uriah Heep oomph that puts this band in a singular spot in the rock’n’roll universe. And it’ll stay that way as long as Mick wants it to. Everything rests on him. And the man doesn’t look like he’s getting tired of anything. Quite the opposite.
Maybe Uriah Heep didn’t have their best day this night, which occasionally showed mostly with Bernie, but with their routine and incredible experience they pulled off a show that’s hard to fault. You always come away with a feeling of great respect for these unique giants of the rock craft, and all you can do is bow to them. The repertoire was heavily loaded with songs from the new album, which in character tie in fantastically with the iron-clad classics and therefore really deserve their showcase. Among the classics, the stretched-out version of Look At Yourself deserves a special mention. The first part of the jam belongs to the rhythm section, and the second puts the fiery duel between Mick and Phil front and center. Utterly mesmerizing. About the new Knocking At My Door, Bernie said at the start that it’s the first new Uriah Heep song in a long time to find its way onto the charts.
Next came the trip to the Czech Republic. A stopover with solid sleep just across the border, a bit past the border town of Mikulov, in the village of Dolni Dunajovice, and then the next day on to the Czech capital Prague, where Uriah Heep played alongside U.D.O. All of that will be covered in a new chapter of our multi-day concert epic on the Austria-Czech Republic route.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: 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’
