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HEEP CONCERT TURNS INTO A RIOT
During Heep's performance at the Germensheim Festival, a near riot occurred after someone threw an object on stage. The object, an orange, hit Lee Kerslake in the family jewels during the intro to "Love Machine". One by one, the Heep members stopped playing until just Ken's keys could be heard and finally they stopped as well. After a lot of screaming and shouting from the crowd, David Byron went back to the microphone and said "All right, come up here and I'll sort you out!"
In Trenton, NJ in 02 we asked Lee who was doing all the yelling, "It was
Mick" he said, "I was bent over going ahhhhhh." The band then left the stage and did not return.
A CONCEPT ALBUM?
Ken had a concept album in mind as a follow up to Demons and Wizards. He was working on a short story at the time on which he planned to base it. Due to time constraints, the concept album idea was dropped although several songs based on the short story were used..... The Magician's Birthday, Echoes in the Dark and Tales. The resulting album, The Magician's Birthday" was a tremendous success.
THE MAGICIAN'S BIRTHDAY LIVE
Although Mick and Ken don't ever recall playing "The Magician's Birthday" in its entirety live in concert, one member of the Heepsters Mailing List recalled a concert in Winnipeg where the band had some technical problems. According to Richard Z., he recalls Ken and David trying to sort out the technical problems while Mick and Lee improvised the guitar and drum battle from the Magician's
Birthday. This was possibly the only time this was played at a concert until the historic Magician's Birthday Party in London on December 7th, 2001!
HEEP'S HOME AWAY FROM HOME
Uriah Heep recorded their first five albums at the Lansdowne Studios in London. The first three were recorded using 8 track technology. Demons & Wizards and the Magician's Birthday used Lansdowne's newly upgraded 16 track board.
LIVE '73 RECORDING
There is some question of whether the Live 73 album was not recorded entirely at one concert. Todd Fisher, who was a member of Heep's crew at the time, has theorized that the album was compiled from different concerts from that UK tour. His tour notes indicate several shows were scheduled to be recorded although the January 23rd concert at the Birmingham Town Hall was not one of them. Todd speculated that the Birmingham gig was recorded as a last resort back-up.
DON'T DRINK THE WATER!
During the tour for the Magician's Birthday, Ken Hensley came down with hepatitus. As Ken recently told Barry Lombardo, "Well, I was recovering from hepatitus. I picked up the hepatitus in Japan. I drank tap water in my hotel in Tokyo. I stayed at an expensive hotel in the center of Tokyo... A couple of days later I had full blown hepatitus. And that's what made us cancel an American tour and I was sick for a long time before I finally gave up and went to the hospital." Ken wrote songs for Sweet Freedom during he time he was hospitalized.
RECORDING IN A HAUNTED HOUSE
Uriah Heep recorded their Sweet Freedom album in France for tax reasons. Heep lived as well as recorded at the Chateau D'Herouville, which was reputedly haunted. However, the chateau has become more famous for subjecting musicians to an amazing number of recording problems. About the same time that Heep was there, Jethro Tull recorded an album at the chateau which was scrapped due to the problems encountered. The recordings were released many years later as "The Disaster Tapes".
SWEET, SWEET FREEDOM
The naming of the Sweet Freedom album was symbolic on several levels... First of all, Heep was leaving their long-time USA label Mercury for Warner Brothers. Secondly, and more importantly, Heep was making a conscious effort to leave behind the mythological, magical fantasy imagery from the hit albums "Demons & Wizards" and "The Magician's Birthday". It seems the
band wanted to distance themselves from those people who took the imagery too seriously.
WHAT WAS THAT??
In September 1974, a Heep concert in Shepperton Studios, West of London, was recorded for American television... Don Kirshner's Rock Concert to be exact. During the concert, a female streaker ran across the stage. This was also the concert famous for the alternative lyrics on "Sweet Freedom" as well as the pigeon molesting version of
"Stealin"!
