Location: Munich (Germany), Carl Orff Saal
Concert date: 12.12.2004
Attendance: 1500
Ticket price: €35.50
In the sold-out Carl Orff Saal (interestingly, just two days after a staging of his opera Carmina Burana in the sold-out Tivoli hall in Ljubljana), a hall just a stone’s throw from the city center (the Ludwigsbrücke over the Isar river separates the two), right across from the Muffathalle, where almost exactly a year ago Uriah Heep also played in Munich (Blue Öyster Cult were the support act back then), I met the great Uriah Heep once again. But this time the difference was huge. Except for a handful of shows, the tour is almost entirely acoustic. Over their 35-plus-year career, Uriah Heep have written a long catalog of outstanding acoustic and semi-acoustic songs, and this time they brought them out on the road. So the tour is called “The Acoustic Side Of Uriah Heep”.
Now, so that things wouldn’t be all roses for the five of us Slovenes, the promoter made sure of it by inviting the German band Tommy to warm up the crowd before Uriah Heep. I’ll be blunt. They were on the typical level of our Slovenian (folk) pop acts. Sugary whining for 40 minutes. These days it often works out that the ones who get to record in a studio are the ones with money, not the ones with ideas and talent. And Tommy belong to the first group. A decent plagiarist, this Tommy frontman. A plagiarist of whatever he learned in music school. No, no, the kid did show he can handle a piano, an acoustic guitar (at least the chords), and that he knows how to open his mouth. But it was all utterly lifeless. After the aftereffects of Tommy’s set, Alen fell into a deep sleep, which sent quite a few Germans around him into fits of laughter, while I had to flee the hall straight to the beer. It was necessary! Because I can only stomach something that sugary against my will in rare exceptions, and my “uptight” self still doesn’t handle it too well. So by now it’s clear to you that I can hardly judge this opener objectively. I can’t bring myself to praise them. And this time an exception happened, one I truly didn’t expect.
“There is always place for you in my heart” and “I can feel your love”, so the words heart, love, baby, feel kept repeating in almost the same order. I yawned. And people applauded. Tommy, the pride of Germany! How do they even tell the difference between Tommy and Uriah Heep, it struck me? So, music stuck in the little boxes of C major, A minor, F major, G major. Everything sounded utterly soulless, without imagination, and thus unbearably boring. Just for the money. Well, sure, all of rock is made for money, but if you basically live off it, you can put some balls into the music you write, the ones Tommy’s mouse has obviously eaten. And once more I’ll admit I find it very hard to judge a band like this objectively, because in this kind of music I simply don’t pick up any deeper vibration at all. The whole thing sounded forced. At least the beer gave me back my self-confidence. Honestly, everyone would have survived without the support act, instead of us going through such a “brain salad surgery”.
Uriah Heep. A band with a sermon my soul identifies with strongly. Can I at least be objective this time? As a fan, hard again. Man, from the very first beat I had chills running down my spine, even though I was sitting at the very back of the hall, in the balcony in row 18. The show was sold out, and the hall holds a bit over 600 people. Of course they were mostly older folks (judging by looks), but clearly young at heart. Just as young people in Slovenia today swear by Sidharta, back in their years of innocence and longing these folks swore by Uriah Heep.
They opened the set with Why Did You Go (“Return To Fantasy”, 1975). All the anger that had built up in me because of the support act dissolved. Uriah Heep had canceled two shows because of vocal problems for singer Bernie Shaw. The band deserves credit for their fairness: the canceled show on 03.12.2004 in Flensburg was rescheduled to the first free date on the tour, 05.12.2004, as soon as Bernie’s voice recovered, so Flensburg got its treat after all. The repertoire was really interesting. They led us through the seventies, starting with Easy Road (“Wonderworld”, 1974, incidentally from an album recorded in Munich). Then a jump to “Sonic Origami” (1999) with Heartless Land and the gorgeous ballad Question. In a word, fantastic. The band’s chemistry really shone on both through their immersive style, since this very lineup wrote both songs. Both were presented flawlessly tight and compact. Bernie dressed like a dandy as usual, Mick seated in white (at the electric shows he likes to appear in black), Phil Lanzon (ex-The Sweet), who from afar looked like Mozart in a shimmering baroque jacket with his hair tied back in a ponytail, behind his “organ lair” like a spider from Mars, a seated Trevor Bolder (who played with D. Bowie on the two famous rock records “Ziggy Starduist And The Spiders From Mars” and “Alladin Sane”) with his worn-out Fender bass, and Lee “The Bear” Kerslake (who, when not busy with Uriah Heep, contributed drums to Ozzy Osbourne’s debut), always smiling, relaxed, approachable, modest and always ready for a good joke. The first two pleasant surprises were undoubtedly If I Had A Time and Year Or A Day, which today’s Uriah Heep lineup (from 1986 to today) had never played live before.
Cirkus (“Sweet Freedom”, 1973) is that gentle little story lifted from a paradise beach somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean. Bernie got busy on congas. Uriah Heep slipped extra piano arrangements into the track, and the song came out quite different from the original, meaning harder. The Latin percussion rhythm picked up a dash of rock, especially when Lee joined the band with his drums in the outro. Trevor shone in the outro with his lightning-fast noodling, and the song was tastefully seasoned with those extra piano arrangements too.
People stirred noisily for the first time during Come Away Melinda. Today’s incarnation of Uriah Heep tailored this one nicely to their own measure too, and the outro, just like Circus, once again turned the atmosphere in the hall upside down. First refined and delicate, at first just Mick and Bernie (guitar and vocals play an integral role in this song), then in the closing part Uriah Heep spiced it up with improvisation. Lee jumped back in with powerful drum blasts, which gave the song, whose expressive power lies precisely in the fact that the gentler you play it, the harder it hits (the original version), a completely new, “slightly” rocking stamp. Lee had nothing to do for half the track. The drumsticks, which look like toothpicks in his mighty hands anyway, somehow couldn’t find their proper place. Well, Lee amused himself during the first part of the song by twirling them in his hands, offering them to Phil in case he happened to need them, and even trying to stick them behind his ears.
People applauded the whole time and the ovations were extremely loud. But the obedient, docile and ever orderly Germans still couldn’t find any special recipe for a complete switch-off. The first time only came after Bernie addressed them, saying: “It is not allowed to smoke, but it is allowed to stand!” “Will you help us singing? This next song I ‘m sure you know real well!” Is it already time for Lady In Black?
Nope! It was Free Me (“Innocent Victim”, 1977). The hit of hits, a song from the era of ex-Uriah Heep singer John Lawton, a man who completely mastered belly singing already in Lucifer’s Friend. A tough job for Bernie, for his style and the color of his voice, and yet Bernie found his feet nicely in Lawton’s shoes, even though few can beat Lawton’s vocal passion (probably only Glenn Hughes). The crowd came alive, the whole hall joined in with non-stop clapping and sang the chorus. Uriah Heep sensed the crowd’s energy, and from then on, further emboldened by the audience’s support from the stands, they were pure magic, and fairy tales from lands of dwarfs, mushrooms, goblins, fairies and wizards came to life. They struck straight into Love In Silence (“Sea Of Light”, 1995). People kept enjoying it on their feet, and during the song’s longer instrumental part Bernie left the stage for a few minutes. Uriah Heep were twice as flawless during it.
Next came the second surprise. The track When The War Is Over (“Raging Silence”, 1989), which isn’t an Uriah Heep song at all but a cover of a hit originally performed by the Australians Cold Chisel. This track, with its gently swaying rhythm and punchier chorus, brought a lovely contrast. Bernie tried to coax even more volume out of the crowd, urging us to repeat the line “Ain’t nobody gonna steal this heart away” in the chorus, but this time we weren’t too convincing. So we were around the halfway point of the show. A fitting track to tuck in between the “love above all” preaching Love In Silence and the trio from “The Magician’s Birthday” (1972) that followed. “The Magician’s Birthday” is probably the best ’70s Heep record. The first track was Sunrise, which in its semi-acoustic version didn’t burn as much as it does in the electric one. Love, love everywhere,…Heep have been searching for love for 35 years and preaching about the liberation of humankind by finding love within yourself, love above all. They write with untamed youthful fervor, with unsung pain in their hearts, which is why these wizards are so convincing. If even a fraction of this poetry rubbed off on each of us, our illusions would become reality. I’m talking about no longer killing each other and just loving each other without limits. Fear and hatred would be rooted out forever. Today everyone laughs deeply at that. In reality Uriah Heep probably do too, but in poetry they’re deadly serious and say that a word hits 1000 times harder than a lead bullet.
Uriah Heep stayed in A minor for the next two songs. The mystical, utterly mystical Tales and of course Blind Eye, with a gypsy-flavored triplet line, a song with such a phenomenal performance that it shook everyone present with all its grandeur. I honestly haven’t had chills like that in a long time. Two songs that are semi-acoustic at heart, and that’s exactly the formula where sensuality radiates even more intensely live on acoustics. The atmosphere was extraordinary. The hall in dark blue, a soft violet light illuminating the musicians and their instruments. Usually between Tales and Blind Eye at acoustic shows the band adds a flute. In the past, special guests joined the band on stage for this occasion, either the boss of Dutch progressive rock legends Focus, Thijs Van Leer, or Jethro Tull’s boss himself, the one and only Ian Anderson. This time Phil wound up his brain cogs and rearranged the flute line for his keyboards. An extraordinary energy full of light, positive and so sincere it sparkled, filled the hall and the hearts of our beings. And then finally a song from the “holy” “Demons And Wizards” (1972). From the album that catapulted Uriah Heep into the company of rock’s greatest and “immortals”. Traveller In Time. At last, I thought. Basically built on a heavy guitar/Hammond motif, and now here in front of us in a completely different outfit. Mick wittily steered the song’s outro straight into the intro of More Fool You (“Raging Silence”, 1989). That’s the song that characterizes singer Bernie Shaw from head to toe (much like Free Me for John Lawton or July Morning for David Byron r.i.p.). More Fool You has a double face, a calm part where the band slyly lays down the sound palettes of its instruments, builds atmosphere, and then it jumps to a new level through the explosive chorus. Bernie was practically tearing himself apart on stage, he was so into it. The audience, with its incredible response, fired up the band on stage and contributed enormously. Bernie sang phenomenally, without a single missed note, with the same intensity in every register, and his voice didn’t lose any power at any point during the show, nor any of Bernie’s unique expressiveness. Bernie, who also sang with the “heavies” Praying Mantis, is the ideal singer for what Uriah Heep are today. Explosive adrenaline-fueled hard rock with a hefty dose of prog elements, and he’d fit perfectly into classic epic melodic heavy metal too, since his voice in the highest registers sometimes pulls toward B. Dickinson (Iron Maiden) or Virgin Steele singer D. DeFeis. Bernie didn’t hold back on his voice, he sang the verses full-on the whole time and didn’t clip them, finishing them early.
And to close, the “evergreen” Lady In Black, which Uriah Heep usually use to end the regular part of their shows. Bernie once again urged the audience to join in, the crowd didn’t need to be asked twice, and we happily “yodeled” through aaaah-aah-aaaah-e. The version was a bit shorter than usual at Uriah Heep’s “electric shows”. The regular part was over. Heep headed off toward a mug or two, towels and maybe a smoke backstage, while the people furiously demanded an encore. Amid the roaring applause and stomping feet, a very loud, euphoric “Wooooow” could easily be heard across the hall.
When they came back on stage, they carried on with their magic. Phil Lanzon was the first to float out on stage and started in on the piano. And there was rain (Rain). One of the most beautiful ballads, if not the most beautiful, in the band’s entire history, taken from the “The Magician’s Birthday” album. A song where you can experience David Byron’s mastery most intensely. A tough task awaited Bernie, while Phil effortlessly brought Hensley’s legacy to life. Rain was definitely another highlight. A fragile, tender confession of when hearts turn to stone, freeze over, when nobody hears your love, when you’re the most alone. The most alone, ironically exactly when you’re surrounded by others. This time I didn’t hold back the tears.
Then Mick Box took the mic. The legendary guitarist of course thanked us from the bottom of his heart and, among other things, added that Uriah Heep truly respect the decision of everyone in the audience to spend tonight’s evening with the band, instead of sitting in front of TV screens at the same hour and numbing out with some cheap series and news reports.
And for the finale, a bit more from the “Demons And Wizards” album. They began with The Wizard, which they played almost in full, then midway jumped to Paradise, just a snippet, but how divinely Bernie sang that line! And after it a fantastic finish with Circle Of Hands. It was a little under two hours that flew by in the blink of an eye. Even after the show I spent at least half an hour bouncing around all wound up with boundless happiness, charged with positive energy, carried away by sheer enthusiasm for such a bombastic concert. The sound was grandiose, the instruments in balance, with Bernie on vocals always at the center. A pure ten out of ten, nearly two hours.
We waited for them after the show. There were seven of us. We waited for autographs. Two Germans with a million posters and the five of us Slovenes. Heep came out very quickly. First only Bernie Shaw, who after a quick wave of the marker headed off to sleep in the tour bus. Then five minutes later the other four companions. But headed in the opposite direction from the one leading to the tour bus. A minivan was waiting to take them on into Munich’s nightlife. And it’s incredible how good a mood the guys were in, laughing non-stop.
Uriah Heep, a band that doesn’t know how to disappoint. Honestly, not many of the legendary rock bands are left in similar form. Even today live they’re pure top league. Perfection, magic. Okay, okay, better rein in my ball of euphoria! Realistically and down to earth, they’re “pros” and they’re seasoned. But the world of orchids, elfin beauties, dragons, goblins, wizards, spells and sorcery always comes to life with them. Poetry of love and peace, arrangements of perfect polish. A band that never got the recognition it deserves. Very unfair, given the extraordinary intellect it has contributed to rock music.
It’s that rare feeling after a concert that even if you’d paid twice as much for the ticket, you wouldn’t regret it. I felt similarly after the Jethro Tull concert this past August in Graz. Among the old cats there are few, really few, who breathe live like 20-year-olds, and these two bands are definitely among them. Whether in acoustic or electric form, the magic is always there and always unrepeatable and unique. Uriah Heep, see you at the first opportunity, don’t worry, I’ll take time off and gallop over to your show.
Setlist
1. Why did you go
2. The Easy Road
3. Heartless Land
4. Question
5. If I had the time
6. A Year or a day
7. Come away Melinda
8. Circus
9. Free me
10. Love in silence
11. When the war is over
12. Sunrise
13. Tales
14. Blind eye
15. Traveller in time
16. More fool you
17. Lady in black
——- encore
18. Rain
19. Wizard/Paradise /Circle of hands (medley)
