URIAH HEEP in Poland during the “Into The
Wild” World Tour, May 2011
MONDAY, May 23rd, 2011, Wroclaw, Eter
club.
Photos and review by Marcin Karski
At 8pm, Kruk – the support band - entered
the stage. They opened their set with "In Reverie" - the
track included on their just now released 2nd album "It
Wil Not Come Back" and in which they have a guest
appearance by Doogie White. The audience was a bit
unsure of the happenings at the start, but when Visnia
(Cherry - the nickname of Tomas – the vocalist -
welcomed the Wroclaw crowd and the band blasted out with
rousing rendition of Deep Purple's "Burn" - they
really got the crowd going nuts for them. It was enough
for them to gain a bit of confidence regardless the
stage fright that they surely had because of fronting
Heep. By the time of the last track "Before He'll
Kill You" - they managed to pull out three tracks of
each of their albums and have the audience eating from
their hands. The spectators even managed to drag the
band into an improvised classic rock guitar vs. audience
call - response duel, which sounded great. Uriah Heep
had their fans warmed up outstandingly!
And right now it was the time for Heep...
The intro tape for their 2011 show is - er, very
strange. Surely not rocking, not even prog, it could be
done a lot better. Once they blast out with "I'm
Ready" thus - all is going down with a true rock 'n'
roll bang. What hits you at the very start is how
energetic Bernie as the frontman is. Completely
impossible to take a good photo off, he doesn't take
more than a few seconds in one place or one pose. And
the front man he is - when he's on the stage - he's on
the very edge - reaching out to the audience - bragging,
and dragging everybody in. He's great in his craft and
he still sings the tunes superbly. The rest of the band
was also on fire for all of the night, I believe that
the enthusiasm of the crowd translated well to the stage
area. With all the beloved classics in the set there was
no option to stay cool and sophisticated. You'd be
insane standing still to the groove of "Return To
Fantasy" or "Stealin' " - it always does what
it should. My personal standouts were: "Rainbow Demon"
with this relentless hook of a crawling beast, 9-minute
"Look At Yourself", where Mick - instead of
playing a solo spot - did a long improvisation prior to
the end with the band boogieing down with a groove in
backing him. It was also a chance for Trevor to shine -
he's still playing the bass with this richness and
utilizing it when he can for a use as a solo instrument.
The John Entwistle's legacy lives on and Heep tradition
is nicely kept up alive. Mr. Box's stage antics doesn't
change much (and so doesn't his soloing), but it was
VERY entertaining and rocking.And the other favorite: "Gypsy".
This is timeless and will never ever cease to ROCK or
loose it's power. Crawling, gritty, swaggering, mind
bombing. Only too bad that the keyboards during the solo
were a bit too low in the mix, but Phil did a fantastic
job. I just love the way the Hammond player is all over
his key paddles and Mr. Lanzon did just that -
fantastic. I also must mention that, while I'm not a fan
of "July Morning" very much - the Wroclaw version
was great - with Trevor throwing his bass up over his
head, soloing madly in the middle and Mick fooling
around in his typical manner with show of hands
(translating the words with the hands moves or drawing
the icons in the air) and also the guitar up over the
head. A lot of great classic rocking.
There has to be, however, another thing
mentioned and very strongly underlined. The band came
down to promote the "Into The Wild" album, new
record, 23rd studio album of their 42 years of career.
The record is great in my opinion, from 12 recorded
tracks 2/3 is really captivating - good melodies, great
choruses and the dense, rocking, immediate hook of the
guitar - keyboard - voices - drums wall of sound. Uriah
Heep plays the new material and it is fascinating how
good the new songs sit in the set list in-between the
classic stuff. The opening track for the concert has to
work very well to get the crowd going and if you choose
a newbie for this role - it has to be a real steamer.
Mentioned before, "I'm Ready" - is excellent to
do just that. "Money Talk" – I didn’t like this
too much on the record but live it proved to be a real
juggernaut - slow, riffy and heavy as hell. Plus, it
gave Mr. Gilbrook the chance to show that he is a hell
of a powerhouse as a drummer. In a way he reassembles
the type of drumming typical for late Cozy Powell, but
he has a lot of his own hints and ideas combined with
much personalized drum set construction as I was told -
to utilize his abilities in maximum. He provides a
fascinating backbone to band’s music. His solo spot was
well balanced - entertaining, skillful and not too long
- which is a key factor for successful drum solos. The
title track, "Into The Wild" is one of the best
rockers I've heard for years - great leading riff,
infectiously groovy chorus with the fabulous melody and
voices choir plus the tempo of the rumbling train (a 'la
Purple's "Under The Gun"). Absolutely astounding
in live circumstances, could be the new classic show
stopper for Heep. And finally the standout from the
album - the slow, beautiful "Kiss Of Freedom"
ballad that really brings out the best Uriah Heep
trademark qualities in music. You can only wish you'd be
able to write this kind of tunes filled with melody, a
chorus that doesn't want to disappear from your head
once it's there, wonderful chord progressions and the
space to play a long up-building solo part on the
Hammond Organ that shows that you really feel for your
instrument (another big moment for Phil - he was great).
The only complaint here could be that the band managed
to drop down two other great new tracks from the set
since the tour started in April (especially missed is
the definite standout off the new album - the epic
progressive tale of "The Trail Of Diamonds").
Given all that - it must be said - Uriah Heep is fully
justified in standing loud 'n' proud with their current
condition - they wonderfully celebrate their past but at
the same time they have a lot of chops to come out with
new, brilliant stuff.
I could really do without "Lady In
Black" as the last track of the set, just like I
could do without "Smoke On The Water" elsewhere
on the world stages. Still this is such a big crowd
pleaser, and people love it and seem not to be able to
live without it. So Mick and Company banged it down,
causing a lot of excitation among the crowd with the
usual singing of the chorus by every throat in the area.
While bidding a goodnight, five members
of Heep, armed together in a bow as they always used to
do it – all had big grins of smile on their faces. A lot
of good energy poured down around over the hour plus
main set.
Encores formula was enriched with
inviting to the stage some audience members to do a
ritual headbanging session during "Free 'N' Easy"
which Mick Box described as a "written to be very
first headbanging heavy metal song". We'll - I'd say
it's more a punk boogie, still - doubtlessly - one of
the best rockers in entire Heep catalogue. Just far too
short, it seemed to end right after it started. The
headbangers were greeted hugs and cheers from all the
band and went back, meantime Mick thanked all audience
for coming down to the show. I was surely the happiest
lad a minute after, since "Bird Of Prey" was
always one of my biggest favorites in band's vast
songbook. I love to jump to it as a crazy kid, singing
my lungs out to the high-voiced ‘ooohs’ chorus. Oh,
shall I mention "Easy Livin' " ? Another
'signature tune' one just by demand, even although there
are deuces of better songs to put in the set list of the
show.
Smiles miles wide - bows and thanks,
great vibrancy throughout. If Uriah Heep are the crafts
of their art - with the pretty solid and well worked
pace of their shows - they still maintain a great deal
of energy and enthusiasm throughout their live show so
the spectator is surely not to be left unsatisfied! A
great show, all in all.
Hope you liked reading about it too! As
Mick used to say: 'Appy days!' :-)
Martin Karski
