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| This
was taken in Aland Mariehamn airport
on the bands way back to London from
the Cinderella boat show. Phil &
Russell were interviewed by the
newspaper journalist |
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Snowpeair
Concert , Kleine Scheidegg.
Joe Cocker & Mick Box
Photos by Caroliine Fürstenberger
Photos by
Charlie Evans +
Newspaper Jungfrou zeitung
| Bright and
early and we all checked in at Heathrow airport for our flight to
Switzerland. We are all in high spirits and very much looking forward the Concert, Another first for Uriah Heep, 2006 Metres up a mountain in the shadow of the Eiger.. The Top Of Europe. We land at Bassel and wait for our luggage to come round.. That's when we see it... or rather we don't see it... We are missing four cases , Which four?? Well two production cases with vital equipment for the show in them and two Guitar cases with all our guitars in them.!!!!! Yup our Guitars had gone AWOL. Both of Mick's Signature DOS guitars, A Godin Acoustic and both of Trevor's Basses, including his battered but priceless Fender After an hour or so explaining our situation to airport staff we are assured they would arrive on the next flight, So we board our bus for the 175Km drive to the hotel... We eat dinner and wait, The time of the next flight passes and still no guitars arrive. Everyone goes off to bed except Myself and Peter our Monitor Engineer.. Along with the Promoter we sit around a table until 1.30 am trying to come up with a plan as to how we are going to play without any guitars, We make a list of things we need including cables, effect pedals and In Ear Monitors. then a rep from the fantastic backline rental company we use in Switzerland.. Swiss Cheese and Chocolate... (Don't ask... I never do) ran around till 6am trying to locate what we needed.  7am
and i am in the hotel lobby to be greeted by... Good Morning sir...
Sorry your lost cases have still not arrived... DOH !The crew loads up what gear we do have and set off for a train ride up the Mountain.. and what a ride it was.. Heep have taken me to many cool places but this was AMAZING.... High into the Alps , It was the most breathtaking experience, the view just got better and better as we climbed to the summit, We then loaded the gear onto a very big Snow-Cat to get to the stage.... First the good news... The guys from Swiss Cheese had come through for us.. One Gibson Les Paul Guitar, A Levinson Bass and all the in ears and cables we had asked for. We can not thank these guys enough for all their help... You know its coming..... Heres the bad news... Someware in transit those chimp like baggage handlers have done it again,, Man i HATE those F*&%*RS... I think i could do jail time for just THINKING of what i would like to do to those jerks.... Both our Guitar and Bass amps are trashed.. These Gimps are just too lazy to place items down carefully and too stupid to read the Fragile stickers... When i am King of the world it will be my mission to round up each and every one of theses Knuckle Dragging Retards and have them boiled in Satans own pee... Sorry i went off track a bit there.... Where was I ? Oh yes.... Luckily we had rented amps on stage So we got to work, But the guitar i was given was unplayable The neck was like a Rollercoaster. Now i'm a proud man BUT not too proud to beg, and i see that the support band called Hamschter are playing Les Paul's, So after a little Butt Kissing we have a guitar for the gig. I must at this point say that this is testament to our crew, Charlotte, Both Peters and Mark, That after all this we pulled it together... But more so to the band, Who with borrowed gear, A very cut down sound check and a really nasty on stage sound still played a great gig..True Pros... The gig went down a storm and all the crowd enjoyed it with plenty of singing along and arm waving. Ater the show.. and mucho vino.. the band go back down to the hotel and Peter, Mark and me wait for our gear to be loaded onto the train, Mark took this oppertunty to steal someones Tobbogan and hurl himself down the mountain side Next morning and at 7.30am we leave for the airport and back to London where much to our relief we find the missing cases.. No one seems to know what happened to them or where they had been.. Oh well at least we got them back safe and sound Mick promised me an "Adventure" when i joined the crew.. and to this day it continues.. A huge thanks to Swiss Cheese, Hamschter and the fans for making all this worth while. What a fantastic weekend, I cant wait to go back again. Top "O" The World Ma !!!! Chris
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