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URIAH HEEP

LONDON HIGHBURY GARAGE – 04/11/09

This was my first visit to the newly refurbished Garage and I have to say I was suitably impressed – not as impressed as I was by the fabulous Uriah Heep though. The band opted to forgo the customary support bands and just deliver a lengthy set of favourites, old and new. They opened up with a trilogy of tracks from their 2008 studio effort Wake The Sleeper – the thundering title track itself, ‘Overdrive’ and ‘Tears Of The World’. As a front man Bernie Shaw is the complete package; his voice soared effortlessly over the dynamic songs and he put on a great performance – dancing, posing and really engaging with the delighted fans. To his right Mick Box played like a virtuoso demon and looked as cool as fuck. In a recent review of the Celebration – 40 Years Of Rock album I commented that “I would say here’s to another forty years but that might be being a tad over optimistic even for the indefatigable Mick Box…” however, having seen him in action tonight I wouldn’t bet against him outlasting the lot of us. After the breathtaking openers it was time for some classic material and you don’t get much more classic than ‘Stealin’. Listening to everyone in the Garage singing along to this was just great. A brief drum solo from new boy Russell Gilbrook then led us into ‘Sunrise’, an unexpected pleasure which featured a brilliant vocal performance from Bernie. From there it was back to Wake The Sleeper for ‘Book Of Lies’ which was rounded off with a short but sweet keyboard solo from Phil Lanzon that perfectly introduced a colossally heavy ‘Gypsy’. Before we’d had time to catch our breath the band then launched into a bouncy, adrenalin driven ‘Look At Yourself’. Everything was then brought bang up to date by the epic ‘What Kind Of God?’ , the reflective ‘Angels Walk With You’ and ‘Shadow’ before the eternal favourites ‘July Morning’ and ‘Easy Living’ brought the curtain down for the first time. Of course the band had to return for the inevitable encore and they chose to send us all off into the night with a song that Mick Box described as belonging as much to the fans as to the band – ‘Lady In Black’. We all sung ourselves hoarse and left with happy memories of one of the best gigs of the year.

Chris Kee

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