Live At Shepperton 74

Live At Shepperton '74 was a recording that was never originally intended for format commercial release. In fact some members of the band today believe it should never have been released! But released it was, to the delight of the fans. Rough and ready as the concert may be, it displays an insight into the inner workings of a band performing a radio show rehearsal that was to become a light hearted concert. Recorded at Shepperton Studios, west of London in 1974 to an in house crowd, it shows the band in truly candid form. The filming was done specifically for broadcast to American TV viewers after previous recordings performed in the US had gone astray (the band say they had, in fact, refused to perform the show in the US). The soundtrack was accompanied by some excellent film footage of the band in action (some of this has been previously released in 1985 on the History Of Uriah Heep video, now a deleted and sought after item). The original CD/vinyl release only lasted 35 minutes or so, with much of the original material being edited out. In this new re-mastered release we have included several alternate takes and a hitherto unavailable version of Sweet Freedom. This was previously believed to be the only live version of this song committed to tape. However, another version was discovered recently on the recordings of the Live In San Diego concert of 1974.

Although the recording may not be the best live concert the band performed, it does show a humorous and light-hearted side to the band in a concert environment. The guitars were very poorly recorded for this gig. The concert was recorded prior to the release of the Wonderworld album and features several early workings of tracks from the forthcoming album. So new were some of the songs that the band had word and chord sheets scattered over the stage floor and climbing up the monitors! It does therefore contain some of the last material recorded by the wonderfully melodic New Zealand bass player Gary Thain. Thain was removed from the band shortly after the release of Wonderworld. Sadly he died a few months later in December 1975.

As Mick Box recounted recently on the filming at Shepperton, "I can't remember much except the woman who ran across the stage stark naked in the middle of filming!" Now there's one for the collectors to hunt out! Next please!

© 1997 Robert M. Corich

Content Copyright © 1997 Jay Pearson

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