Impressed as I was with their support slot when I saw Priest last year, and considering that this was being touted as their touring swansong, I decided to give Uriah Heep’s Magician’s Farewell tour a gander last Wednesday.
Support came in the form of Canadian lomgstanders April Wine and the hard-rocking Tyketto. The latter opened the show with a rather impressive set that introduced me to ’90s AOR bangers such as ‘Wings’, ‘Burning Down Inside’, ‘Strength in Numbers’, and the song they wrote to encourage birds to get their tits out, ‘Lay Your Body Down’.
April Wine followed up with a serviceable set, the likes of ‘Big City Girls’, ‘Oowatanite’, and ‘Roller’ perking things up, if not quite to the same extent as the previous act.
Things, of course, picked up considerably once Uriah Heep hot the stage, claiming attention and setting the course with the oldy–newy combo of ‘Grazed by Heaven’ and ‘Save Me Tonight’; from then on, it was a setlist of stuff from what their more diehard fans would consider their classic era (‘Stealin”, ‘The Wizard’, the excellent ‘Shadows of Grief’, and the ever lovable, if shortened, ‘Gypsy’) and newer gems (‘Hurricane’). Current vocalist Bernie Shaw mainly dominated the between-song bantage with some interjection from axeman and sole original member Mick Box, both noting the passage of time, the ups and downs of touring, and their plans to keep things alive in the studio following their retirement from the road.
A sterling encore double-bill of ‘Sunrise’ and ‘Easy Livin” closed the last show of their last (?) UK tour to the applause of the audience, myself included. Given how much I dug it, I can only imagine how much more it made its mark on the more hardcore fanbase.
~MRDA~
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