KEN HENSLEY
1997
There I was (no, not on a July morning!) in Studio 4 at The Hit Factory in New York, listening to (and trying to help mix) Uriah Heep Live In San Diego at a volume I can only describe as... "dangerous"!!! Sitting there with Gary Lyons, our engineer Rob Murphy and "Tweety", it wasn't too difficult to cast my mind back to what I still consider to be the golden years of Uriah Heep. Specifically, we were headlining this show at the San Diego Sports Arena, with Manfred Mann and the late, great Rory Gallagher opening up for us. In those days, we were selling out arenas all over the world and San Diego was one we always looked forward to.
I have said before that, on its night, Heep was as powerful as any band, anywhere and this
night, so long ago, was a powerful night. Not perfect but powerful! Of course, there are
always technical glitches when recording a live performance, especially back then when
technology was nowhere near as sophisticated as it is now, but we were there and the
audience was there and that's all any of us needed.
That was, and still may be, the whole point with Uriah Heep. The critics hated us, particularly when we began to accomplish all the things they said we would never accomplish, but all we ever listened to was you, our fans, the ones who bought the tickets and the records. Each show gave us a very short time to share with you and we all made the most of it... nothing else mattered!
Something else that's different about this show is the set list and the order. I don't think we did Sweet Freedom or Seven Stars often and the show features all our biggest songs but in an unusual order.
One technical comment (aside from the fact that my harmony is missing on the first two songs due to brain fade at the live gig!), the total original program length was 93 minutes and, in order to squash it onto one CD, we had to edit some of the keyboard and drum solos... sorry about that... maybe we'll make the full show available as a limited edition later on!!!
The show starts with our version of a symphony orchestra tuning session! I remember we were having a lot of problems with the monitors that night which gave David a particularly tough time so the organ is just grinding a note for guitar and bass reference which suddenly becomes the opening of Easy Livin'. (When I first listened to the rough mixes, I thought I was going to hear Sunrise!)
Directed by David's unique style of "communicating" with the audience, the record goes through a medley of hits, sidestepping to Seven Stars and Sweet Freedom and, in another unusual move, Love Machine closes the main set.
I don't remember exactly when we started doing the rock & roll medley but I know it became sort of a "signature" for the band and was very popular. I like this version of it and I hope you do too.
Do you remember Melissa Mills review of our first album in Rolling Stone? I quote... "If this band makes it, I'll commit suicide" (we did, she didn't)... well, Melissa, we made it and, thanks in part to the guys at King Biscuit Records, we're still making it!
Sit back, turn it up to "dangerous" (you can always call Gary for a new set of speakers) and enjoy a real rock and roll show from a real rock and roll band!!!
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Content Copyright © 1997 Jay Pearson
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