All good things must come to an end, and even Uriah Heep’s long and distinguished career seemed to be winding down when they announced that their current tour would be their last and was being badged as ‘The Magician’s Farewell’. Given guitarist and heartbeat of the band Mick Box is 78 this year, perhaps it is hardly surprising, yet he still seems somehow ageless and the band have had a fresh vitality in recent years.

They are doing so when their stock in their home country is as high as it has been in a long time. The Palladium was sold out which was music to my ears as one who remembers poorly attended London shows in the eighties and nineties, though the announcement it was the final tour may have had something to do with it.

Unlike three years ago, when they belatedly celebrated their 50th anniversary here with ‘An evening with…’ of two sets, this time the evening was jam packed with a three band bill, opened by Tyketto. I am a long time fan, but as a band who only emerged in the early nineties, I suspect they were unfamiliar to the majority of Heep’s crowd.

It has to be said they played a blinder and unlike their headline set in the autumn which appeared to deliberately target the more obscure parts of their catalogue, the set was a primer focused on their best known songs, mainly from their classic debut ‘Don’t Come Easy’. The exception was the rootsy opener ‘Reach’ where singer Danny Vaughn started as he meant to go on, going to the lip of the stage with his acoustic guitar. Two ‘DCE’ classics in ‘Wings’ and ‘Burning Down Inside’ followed, both with excellent solos from guitarist Harry Scott Elliott.

Danny is a consummate frontman as well as a commanding singer and easily made a connection with the crowd on ‘Strength In Numbers’ and again, getting some crowd participation going on what he called ‘the stripper song’ in ‘Lay Your Body Down’. I

n contrast he admitted it was a risk to play a ballad in a short set, but ‘Standing Alone’ had meant so much to fans, and he even successfully roused most to their feet during their anthem ‘Forever Young’. They took the crowd by the scruff of the neck and could not have done any more to win over new fans- indeed I was picking up similar vibes to when I saw them for the very first time, supporting White Lion in 1991.

One of the few bands that can almost match Uriah Heep for longevity is April Wine. In contrast to Tyketto, I’d previously seen them only the once, in the USA in 2012, and sadly since that date founder member and main man Myles Goodwyn has passed away, but the band soldier on.

The Canadians’ last trips to the UK were way back in the very early eighties and the set majored on albums like ‘Harder Faster’ and ‘Nature Of The Beast’ from those days, beginning with ‘I Like To Rock’, ‘All Over Town’ and a rather unconvincing ‘Say Hello’. Myles’ successor on lead vocals and guitar, the shaven headed Marc Parent was doing a very sturdy job, while the sole survivor from those days, the now silver haired and bespectacled Brian Greenway was given a chance to show his rather rawer vocals and guitar on ‘Before The Dawn’.

However their very typically Canadian low key approach, while normally a quality to praise, rather palled against the charisma and more in your face approach of the bands either side of them, plus it has to be said that songs like ‘Crash And Burn’ and ‘Big City Girls’ were distinctly ‘vin ordinaire’.

Yet they turned things around with an excellent closing quartet: after a twin lead intro Marc did an excellent job on the ballad ‘Just Between You And Me’ then Brian took over lead vocals for ‘Oowatnite’ with drummer Roy Nichol using one of his sticks to keep ringing a bell. The guitarists were trading those harmony leads on my favourite AW song ‘Sign Of The Gypsy Queen’, at which point I thought that might be it, but instead they closed with the boogie workout of ‘Roller’. So not the most spectacular show of the night, but a very decent one.

People had remained resolutely seated during their set but as Uriah Heep came on stage with a well-lit stage show, fellow Canadian Bernie Shaw summoned the crowd to their feet, where they stayed for the rest of the show- proof that he is a consummate ringmaster and underrated as one of the best frontmen around. With only a 90 minute set my question was how they would cram those 55 years in.

They opened with some more recent numbers in ‘Grazed By Heaven’ with Mick Box and Phil Lanzon trading guitar and keyboard solos, and the fast and furious ‘Save Me Tonight’ from latest album ‘Chaos and Colour’ reminding me of ‘In Rock’-era Deep Purple. They didn’t quote meet Bernie’s promise to cover all eras, with nothing between 1977 and 2008, ‘Overload’ from the latter year opening with a rapid flurry of notes from Mick and closing with Phil’s Hammond stabs.

Of course their peak years with David Byron and Ken Hensley have to take priority though the first song from that era was perhaps the most unexpected cut in the set in ‘Shadows Of Grief’, with some very progressive, almost psychedelic sounding jamming before the excellent Dave Rimmer’s bass intro was the cue for Bernie to lead the audience participation to ‘Stealin’.

Drummer Russell Gilbrook got a name check for his writing credit before the other recent song ‘Hurricane’, which was a grower, but the biggest cheer came when Bernie brought Mick in from the wings to pay tribute to the man who has been there through thick and thin, all the while maintaining one of the most happy go lucky faces in rock. The fact he was donning an acoustic guitar meant it could only be ‘The Wizard’, though as the song progressed into the full band phase I did think the one area where the current Heep line up is not as strong as its predecessors is in the vocal harmonies.

‘Sweet Lorraine’ featured some very early seventies sounding synthesiser work from Phil and a chorus that everyone picked up on as the song wore on, confirming Mick’s introduction that he set out to write a party song, before the out and out heavy rock of ‘Free And Easy’.

Given the tour billing it was no surprise that the title track of ‘The Magician’s Birthday’ got a relatively rare airing, its 13 minute length and fantastical themes summoning up the spirit of the times. There was a lengthy mid section with Mick soloing, accompanied only by Russell though I felt the subsequent passages never really regained the initial momentum.

Time was ticking rapidly but the two set closers since time immemorial just had to be played in ‘Gypsy’, Mick expressing his pride that the first song he wrote for the band had lasted so long, and the 10 minute ‘July Morning’, which benefited from a few minor tweaks to the arrangement. Both showcased fantastic musicianship from the four players, while Bernie, who for many years I thought was in the shadow of some of his predecessors, impressively nailed all the high notes and the falsetto screams and has surely seldom sung better.

With the crowd beating out the intro, first encore ‘Sunrise’ sounded massive while after a series of thanks, the night ended as usual with a rollicking ‘Easy Living’.

Even if staples like ‘Lady In Black’, ‘Rainbow Demon’ and ‘Look At Yourself’ had to be omitted, no one could seriously quibble at the set list, and after 55 years this incarnation of Uriah Heep are arguably playing better than ever. Fortunately, the word from the stage was that this was merely a cutting back on tiring, lengthy world tours rather than a complete end to the Heep story both in the studio and, hopefully, live.

Review and Photos by Andy Nathan

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