Prior to this tour, the existence of New York-based band, Tyketto, had completely passed me by. This is despite lead singer, Danny Vaughn, once fronting Pete Way’s post-UFO outfit, Waysted, for a period. I’m impressed. Accessible, melodic, AOR-tinged hard rock with a nice line in instantly-appealing riffs and catchy choruses, by the end of the set I feel I’ve known them for years. They deservedly go down extremely well.
The next band, of course, I do know. Britain might have had Last of the Summer Wine but Canada has April Wine. Formed in Halifax in Nova Scotia in 1969, the band enjoyed huge success in Canada but began finding favour with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal crowd in the early 80s. Certainly, as a young teenager I remember taping a few of my dad’s April Wine albums. With the death of lead vocalist/guitarist, Myles Goodwin, in 1969 there are now no original members left in the modern-day line-up but guitarist/vocalist, Brian Greenway, has been with them since 1977, providing a clear link back to the classic era. When my tape collection evolved into a CD collection, the April Wine albums somehow never made the transition but there’s several songs that I instantly recognise tonight and I make a mental note to rectify the lack of April Wine CDs in my collection and see what I can hunt down.
I suspect that for many in the audience, the band have remained a distant memory, albeit a warmly-regarded one. We are told that the last time the band toured the UK was back in the early 80s but they have clearly encountered an enthusiastic response on this tour. New lead vocalist/guitarist, Marc Parent, is an excellent frontman and the band work well together. Songs from the band’s 1981 album, The Nature of The Beast, which make up a sizeable chunk of the set, together with perennial crowd-pleasers like ‘I Like To Rock’, which the band open with, all go down extremely well. Indeed, I’m sure April Wine would find an enthusiastic audience should they decide to tour the UK a little more frequently – and not leave it for another forty years next time.
Regardless of whether your idea of the classic Uriah Heep line-up is Box/Byron/Hensley/Kerslake/Thain or Box/Bolder/Hensley/ Kerslake/Lawton, only one of those musicians is now still with us – the guitar legend and that ever-present force of nature, Mick Box. Since the late 1980s, albeit that circumstances have forced them to gradually evolve, Heep’s line-up has been blessed by a remarkable degree of stability, however. What’s more, the current configuration of Mick Box, Phil Lanzon, Bernie Shaw, Russell Gilbrook and Dave Rimmer have been together for well over a decade now. And not only do they treat Uriah Heep’s esteemed musical legacy with integrity and panache, they’ve also served up some excellent new music in the process, too.
It’s right, therefore, that the early part of the set is devoted to some of the band’s more recent material: ‘Grazed by Heaven’ from 2018’s Living The Dream, ‘Save Me Tonight’ from 2023’s Chaos and Colour and ‘Overload’ from 2008’s Wake The Sleeper. Sadly, there’s nothing from Outsider, my favourite of the ‘recent’ albums, but that’s a small niggle. As Bernie Shaw points out before the band move on to some of the older material, the big challenge has been to condense “fifty-five fucking years of Uriah Heep into ninety minutes”.
Then, with Phil Lanzon pounding the keys for the distinctive, grandiose intro of ‘Shadows of Grief’ from the Look At Yourself album, we are into the classic era. Gems like ‘Stealin’, ‘The Wizard’ and ‘Free ‘n’ Easy’ all follow. This tour has been dubbed The Magician’s Farewell and so, unsurprisingly, the 1972 Magician’s Birthday album is well-represented. This includes ‘Sweet Lorraine’ (about the band’s partying days back in the early 70s, according to Box, when an enthusiastic female fan called Lorraine coined the phrase that became the band’s chorus: ‘let the party carry on’), together with the title track itself and, later on in the proceedings, the epic ‘Sunrise’.
Shaw also does his best to reassure us that, in spite of the ‘Farewell’ bit in the tour’s title, this is not the end of Heep. The mammoth world tours may be coming to an end, but Uriah Heep are not quitting performing altogether and they still have plenty of new music in them, he tells us.
The pomp of those pounding keyboards, Box’s trademark wah-wah guitar, the sweet-sounding vocals, the immensely-powerful rhythm section, and of course, all those classic songs, I’m given everything that I want from a Uriah Heep gig and it’s an incredible celebration of the band’s career. Soon, however, things start drawing to a close. After a thunderous ‘Gypsy’ from the band’s debut album, we are on to the familiar opening strains of ‘July Morning’ and a stunning rendition of the band’s most celebrated song.
Curfew time is fast approaching so there’s just time for an encore with a majestic treatment of the aforementioned ‘Sunrise’ and, of course, the pure unalloyed joy that is ‘Easy Livin’’
I was still a pre-schooler when Uriah Heep released their debut album in 1970, although this year does mark 40 years since I first saw the band at Manchester Apollo back in 1985. Tonight’s performance proves beyond doubt that my enthusiasm for the band remains undimmed. I’m relieved to hear this is not quite the finale just yet.
Setlist:
Grazed by Heaven
Save Me Tonight
Overload
Shadows of Grief
Stealin’
Hurricane
The Wizard
Sweet Lorraine
Free ‘n’ Easy
The Magician’s Birthday
Gypsy
July Morning
Sunrise
Easy Livin’
Related posts:
Album reviews: four solo releases from the extended Uriah Heep family
July Morning – a fifty-year-old British rock song and an annual celebration of summer in Bulgaria
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