The
venue was a country music venue, and the tour
was the 1st Rock on in some time. It
was about 1/2 full I expect, and it sure seemed
they liked Uriah Heep ! It was
overheard..YOU GUYS ROCK !! :-)Lots
of autographs given out..Mac and Lannis and
Bobbie were in the 5th or 6th row originally,
but we got them into the orchestra pit, so they
were happy !!
A few minor glitches at the show:
Mick has to get his new amps under control.
These new Marshalls are a bit different then the
vintage ones he owns, but that will be sorted.
Trev blew out both his amps - 250 and 400 watt
Trace Elliots...the 250 in sound check, and the
400 watter on Easy Livin !!
One
of Phil's keyboards didn't work quite right, but
these are all to be expected for the 1st gig,
and it will not be a problem
The boys really seemed to enjoy themselves, and
Egdar Winter and Mark Farner rocked on...
Cheers for now..time for breakfast !
Sterling Heights - Continued
"Loads of news friends"
I have met them many ! And so many ha ha !!
John White , Eugene Grossbeck, Dave Lumley,
many many more !!!
EVERYONE wants to meet the band.
Last night, they came out between the Winter
and Farner stes and hung around by the mercho
stand and were mobbed !! Heep has had a WONDER
reception !!
Mercho is selling well ! CD's and DVD's have
sold really well, More ON THE WAY ! Running low,
but more are on the way...will be in touch from
the road ...
Cheers,
Dave
From Dave White - June 13th, 2001
Dave "The Mercho Madman" and I have been talking
2-3 times a day almost every day during the tour, but most times it's
cell phone to cell phone (he calls me, or I call him), and I am either in the car, or away from a computer. The next entry is random bits
summarized from the last few days...)
"The tour is going really well...the boys are pumped and aside from some technical issues it's been a ball so far.
(Speaking of a ball...they went to a baseball game the other night before the 1st Louisville
game...) Dave said "I don't know who the teams are anyway, so I guess I'll
root for both...(I replied..aw..just pick one and try to remember which one it was !!)
Mick has had a "getting used to" period for his Marshalls and that seems to be being sorted out, but Trevor is blowing speaker boxes ! (Dave White
note: I spoke to Trevor this
afternoon, and he really is having a problem hearing himself sometimes, and blowing out cabinets
other times !! I suggested maybe the "wattage" over here isn't the same as over there :-)"
Hmmm...well, it sounded good to me...he chuckled..) and then asked if I we would put a little note about the new release of Cybernauts..I said Sureeee ! See the opening page of Heep.com for the
link).
The after show parties have been wild...some pretty
wild indeed..Mick is really enjoying Paul Michael visiting on the tour. The bus is a 12 bunker, and there is gear in the back so it's a bit cramped but they are doing ok.
.. Unquestionably the best part of this all is meeting the fans...they have been
wonderful...patient, great crowds, and just an all around good bunch !!
The meets and greets after the shows have been
fabulous. A treat for the band as much as the
fans.
Mac/Lannis and Bobbie have been there the entire trip so far, and that's SOMETHING !! They better have some great stories to tell...as far as sales of merchandise go, additional shipments are needed as they ARE running out of somethings, and
more is being supplied.
The fans are BUYING !!!
Plans are afoot for the 2nd 1/2 and it should be everybit as good as the 1st half of the tour !
(Dave White note: As most of our phone conversations seem to have the band either warming up, or actually playing in the background, there's usually some shouting on the phone from both of us...I was walking around the block with my son
tonight when Dave called..I was yelling into the phone, and the
neighbors...well, I wonder just what they did think !!)
On a personal note, the response from the fans to the website has been great...lots of pictures, and many more coming I am told by
e-mails...thanks to all of you and keep'em coming !
More here, as soon as I hear from Dave Owen..."The Mercho Madman !"
Special Report from Mac Steagall :
From: Mac Steagall <rsteagall@carolina.net>
I just got in a little a few hours ago from the amazing, incredible,
and totally unforgetable road show known as the www.Uriah-Heep.com
USA Tour 2001. I attended the first 4 gigs in the USA in about seven
years. Heep has been consistently great, that's nothing new. However,
the gig yesterday in Louisville, Kentucky was in my judgement the best
gig I've ever seen by any band.
The thing that made this such an incredible
experience was the fan reaction that Heep evoked. I've never been to a
concert with the mass euphoria the crowd showed. I know there are a lot
US Heepsters starving for another look at their band but this is more than
that also. From the mass of people in Coyotes packed against the stage...
the waving hands and screaming from the crowd, clapping at Bernie's every
direction. It was quite obvious that this crowd of... I don't know... maybe
two thousand were totally into Heep from start to finish. UH surprised alot
of people in Louisville and I think this may be the start of something big!
At the end of the concert I was totally drained from participating in a
Heep event. It was obvious by the looks on the bandmember's faces that they
were overjoyed to see this kind response and Bernie in particular played to
the crowd and put on a great performance. Mick's guitar solos were greeted
with howls of delight. Mark June 12th, 2001 on your calendar! Heep has begun
to retake the USA.
New songs in the setlist...
Traveller in Time (non-acoustic)
Look at Yourself
BTW I was asked about my Heep USA Tour 2001 t-shirt four times today at
various airports(Louisville, Cleveland, Raleigh-Durham). Also we may have
to change the name of this tour to "The Grandad's Tour" from "The Birthday
Tour". My granddaughter, Zia Kathryn Gibson, was born on June 13th, 2001
at 11:47am in Ocala, FL.
HH!
Older than Dirt!
Thursday June 14th
Loosing track of time a bit now...It's a bit
confusing..so what time IS it? :-)
The Indianapolis show was smashing...large
crowd, and many E-Heep signups ! It was
in a Country Western Saloon.
We have sold out almost everything now..more
T-shirts and cd's will be arriving soon...Bob
Dreher brought his guitar to be signed .I saved
him a t-shirt, a set of Mick's used strings, and
the original setlist..another show tomorrow, and
then it's off to Cleveland. See you soon!
Cheers,
Dave
Wednesday June 20th
Played to a great crowd at Deerfield Ohio..lots of fun and good to see everybody there !
Off to Wisconsin the next day. The band had Sunday off until Moday night and we went shopping !
I ended up taking a Limo back to the hotel, and the band eneded up in a Taxi !
In Wisconsin, the bridge between Duluth Minnesota and Wisconsin was closed due to weather, and about
80% of the crowd was from Duluth...so a small crowd...but the SHOW was great ! One of the best performances yet.
Mick changed the "Look At Yourself" solo to a new one...Brilliant !
No blown out bass heads or cabs this gig.
Next was Medina Minnesota and THIS was an excellent gig. Fairly large crowd..loud enthusiastic fans , the boys had a ball..
Whilst setting up the mercho stand, I went for food, and when I came back Byron and son James Hill and Steve Henderson were already at the store !
Nice mates, they had the sign up forms all done and were selling the merchandise ! All I had to do was watch ! Just like having Lannis and Bobbie there...
Good show, nothing went wrong this night either...Classic Rock Revisited had an interview with the band (Thanks to Dave White), and that went over really well..
Milwaukee tonight...and then back to Cleveland for Thursday's show...
See you soon,
Cheers,
Dave
Day
11
I
took a quick trip across the road to buy a
couple of cookies, I wish I hadn't
started eating them as I was pursued by some
very hungry seagulls and had
to virtually run back to the relative safety of
the hotel. Back at the venue
I waited patiently for the rush, very patiently
, it never happened ! Apparently
Tornadoes (a severe weather warning was givenon
theTV) and general fog
had shut the bridge from Duluth where 80% of the
attendees come from, so we
ended up with approx 50 in the audience. 
It
was a real shame as I would rate
that as the best show of the tour so far ,
Trevor even turned his bass amp
down tonight , a very rare occurrence indeed.
Jim the bus driver and I had
taken positions at the front of the stage to
fill it up a bit! Mick responded
by giving a real blinding guitar solo in LAY
rather than the usual string
scraping. After the set I stood in front of
Trevor shouting more and he
told me to piss off which I assume meant no:o) I
sold 2 tshirts and 2 cds on
the night. Not the best night of the tour ,
shame as the show was superb, again
the band prove that weather its 50 or 50000 the
show is still as good.
One
punter asked me who Lisa was? I looked at him
puzzled and he pointed to the
back of the shirt , USA does look like Lisa in
the Bremen typeface. After an
autograph signing for the waiting hordes it was
back to the hotel for bed 3am.Word
of the day " Awesome!
Day
12
A
swift sound check were I met Michael Henson and
Byron and James Hill and down
for dinner in the restaurant below I must get
into the habit of ordering Childs
portions of food. The meals were enormous
(again). Enough onion rings in
my starter to feed the whole table. They were
slow serving the food so by the
time the main course arrived the doors upstairs
were already open and the venue
filling up . So, I packed half my dinner in a
doggybag and made my way to
the hall, the stall I'd put out already had a
little crowd around it with Steve
Henderson joining the other guys putting Eheep
forms out and signing people
up. They did a sterling job on the night and
Tshirt sales were good and
all the cds gone , even the ones with the broken
cases ! My helpers left me
just prior to Heep coming on and Byron had a
spare ticket for the front row
which he let Steve have . The show went well
again , no breakdowns and everyone
including the manager of the venue were blown
away by the performance
, a large meet and greet after again worked
wonders for the band and
a whole new army of fans is being found on the
tour
Day
13
The
band had walked back from their soundcheck to
the venue by the time id got
back. They went off for something to eat and
Welchy and I stayed at the venue
with the promise of a KFC meal ! After we'd
eaten the panic was beginning
to set in . I had arranged for the mercho to go
to here and not somewhere
else? No , I was convinced and sure enough
shortly after it was delivered
from the garage across the road where it had
been all day ! The
room started to fill nicely again meeting
Heepsters who Id spoken to in both the
recent and distant past and the orange UHAS
buttons are quite a homely sight
for a chap from distant shores. The crowd are
enthusiastic and the night
is very good, A late leave from the venue and we're
on the way to
Cleveland
were a large contingent of Heepsters were
expected. 
The
breakfast/ midnight
treat at the truckstop meant we weren't really
on the road till 4am and
a very drunk Phil had even eaten the leftovers
from the KFC in a very carnivore
manor.
Day
14
!
I think the arrival at the blind Lemon Club was
a shock to everyone . It was
the smallest venue to date , a sort of front
room with a stage with very minimal
equipment in fact the Charlie even had a mention
from the band tonight
for being a real trooper and being both monitor
and sound engineer on the
night.The crowd had started to assemble quite
early for the night they wanted
to catch the soundcheck and the general consensus
was they could have booked
somewhere better. I think anyone could! The
soundcheck was a lot of hard
work and considering the fun the band had had in
Deerfield at soundcheck this
was the exact opposite. To make it worse the
night consisted of 4 bands . 
Heep
headlining and a Creed sounding band to open, a
very average band second on
the bill and an out and an shitband as support
who announced this ones simon
the Bullitt Freak and then played some complete
crap which was terrible.
The highlight of their set was setting fire to a
cloth and putting it
on top of the headstock of his bass,
unfortunately the upward flick caused it
to land on the lights still alight! A quick
stagehand with a long pole got the
cloth down and put the fire out saving a
potential disaster. Heep sounded good
tonight dispite all the problems and even Bob
who'd turned up to pipe the
band in was impressed , but not with the venue
Day
15
Showtime
for us was midnight, for a couple of reasons,
2support bands , and a
Journey/Peter Frampton show across the other
side of town. Jay was having this
leafletted after the gig and he expected quite a
few to come over to Heep.
The first support band were Electric Warrior a
70s glam cover band , some
of the tunes were lost on the audience. Jay
played in the second support band
and had a real kick out of playing Lee's kit and
playing support to Heep.
Just prior to Heep going on stage there was a
massive loud thunder storm,
frighteningly loud and close. My mercho area was
underneath the leaky part
of the roof too . I had to keep moving to avoid
the drips! The
storm got progressively worse and the at the
point where I had to run out to
the bus I got soaked and the lightning seemed so
close all I could think was
running down a metal staircase was a really
stupid thing to do
Day
16
Midway
though BTW Mick's amp blew a fuse " no
change there , the tour curse continues.
By the end of the set again many new fans had
been made and many
core old fans satisfied. We arranged the meet
and greet for after Edgar Winter
and Jim's idea to get the announcer to say that
Heep were signing autographs
almost swamped the band. It was a real cu-de-gra
though and a lot of
mercho was sold as people wanted to go away with
something signed by the band.
Midway through Mark Farners set the Stealers
game finished and what followed
was the biggest firework display Ive ever seen ,
the whole of downtown
was lit up and many of the skyscrapers had
fireworks on them too. Not
suprisingly Mark struggled to compete with this
and the noise it created. We
had to get out quick to avoid the game crowd and
we just made it
Day
17
Another
long ride with a stop off at a very nice diner
for breakfast, and also
a spotting trip looking for the Lonesome Pine as
we went over the Blue Ridge
Mountains of Virginia and all to quickly we're
faced by the large rubber
tire signifying we're near Detroit Airport and
the last leg of the adventure.
Check in proved once again to be a real pain for
the guys , mine on
the other hand was the opposite , they even got
me on an earlier flight which
was better for me. We said our goodbyes in the
airport and as I watched them
disappear down the terminal building I was asked
Hey , who's the band?
Uriah
Heep I replied,
I
thought so was the reply, maybe, just maybe,
America is waking up again.
