Photos by "Rampant Lou"
Here
Paul Rickard Supplied Pictures Here Pictures from Marije Essink
Here
Photos & Story by Mike Taylor Below
We started the day with a mini Heep
convention around Paul Rickards' house. He lives in
Guildford and was instrumental in getting Heep booked for
the festival. Meg, Louis, Steve and Dav had made the trip
down from Scotland in their 'Classic Rock' Bus and were
staying with Paul. Ian Maclaren joined us as well as Pete
Wharton and Marije who'd travelled over from Holland. Along
with Paul's wife and 2 children and sister in law we enjoyed
a fantastic BBQ. Luckily we had some cover in the garden as
a heavy thunderstorm attempted to spoil the
fun............it didn't succeed:-))
At about 4pm we left for the festival site
and made out way to the 'ents24' stage which is where Heep
were to appear. A glance at the timetable showed that Heep
were to only do an hour from 9-10pm which was a
disappointment especially as they were to play at the same
time as Madness on the main stage. A strict curfew of 10pm
was because the festival was in a mainly residential area of
Guildford. Another long term fan Tina joined us at that
stage.
The band turned up at about 6pm and we
enjoyed various chats and drinks but were aware of some
discontent with the festival organisation. Apparently only
25 mins had been allocated for the crew to set things up
from scratch and the sound was to be restricted to 95db with
a bit of a weedy PA.
No news to report from the Heep front. I
wasn't able to find out anything about the new
album.....maybe someone else was more successful. All were
buoyed up by 2 fantastic gigs in The Czech Republic where
they played to 30,000 crazed Czech's in support of Motorhead
and Finland where they played below ground in a Salt Mine.
They were however very tired. No Dave Owen by the way as
he's is with Ritchie Blackmore. He'll be back soon though.
At 9pm we went to the front of the stage
where a reasonable crowd was gathered considering Madness
were already playing on the other stage. It appeared that
the crew were struggling to get things set up in time as
things were a bit frantic on stage. At about 9.20 Heep hit
the stage to a big noise from the crowd and immediately went
into So Tired. The rest of the set was pretty much as we've
seen before. Every time I hear someone criticise the band
for their set list I start to feel a little bit impatient
for a change but as soon as I see the band live I marvel at
their quality and just immerse myself in the atmosphere.
No new songs but this definitely would have
been the wrong place to introduce them. Everyone wanted to
hear the classics and that's just what they got. Mick had a
few problems which I assume were due to the short set up
time, but it didn't really affect things too much. To quote
Marije Russell really is an animal. Awesome drumming. He
really has brought a new impetus to the band. Sadly it was
over too soon. Heep only managed about 50 mins in total but
I suppose it's quality not quantity. If the crowd had been
allowed to have their way they would have played to
midnight.
A few dinks after the show and a few more
chats until everyone said their goodbye's.