[Heeplist] Heep in Finland 2021 report

[Tapio Minkkinen]

Hi

I had planned to write a report on the Uriah Heep concerts in Finland 
this Summer soon after the concerts but for several reasons it took some 
time to get this done.

This year so far Heep has played only seven gigs and five of them were 
in Finland so we can consider ourselves very priviledged. I went to four 
of those shows, the fifth one was on Thursday and I couldn't go there 
because of work because I just started in a new job, the other shows 
were at weekends.

The first one was in Kotka on Friday 30th July. Kotka is a small harbour 
town in the South-East near the Russian border. The festival was called 
Kotka Soi and it was held at market square in the centre of the city. My 
youngest daughter is studying there and she lives only a couple hundred 
meters away so it was nice not having to pay for the hotel and only a 
couple of minutes walk. I arrived there with my wife already the day 
before.

The other acts that day at the festival were mostly pop and rock and 
pretty far from Heep musically except the opening band Battle Beast. 
It's one of the biggest metal bands in Finland at the moment and I like 
the vocalist Noora Louhimo's voice a lot.

As usual there were some familiar faces in the audience, this is always 
one of the high points apart from the concer itself - to meet people who 
have become friends over the year at Heep gigs. And because of covid-19 
there wasn't possibilites to see live music for a long time. Since last 
Summer I had been to only one concert a few weeks earlier.

Heep was the second last act on the bill so there was a few hours to 
kill before Heep entered the stage. They started with Grazed By Heaven 
followed by Take Away My Soul. Those two songs from the latest album 
were the only newer songs, all the rest was songs from the early 
seventies as they had only one hour time as is usually the case at 
festivals in Finland. From the first songs you could hear that the band 
was really energetic and they had really been waiting for the chance to 
play live again. Before this they had one gig in Wales but this was the 
only gig since March 2020. This became the longest break from touring 
ever in Heep history. Bernie Shaw's voice was in as good shape as the 
last time I was at a Heep gig whic was in October 2019.

No surprises, the show was similar to all those that I have seen during 
Living The Dream tour. As some of the songs are quite long so they could 
fit nine songs to the set and the gig was over way too soon. The show 
was received very well by the audience, although Heep has toured Finland 
often in the last couple of years (tour of 10 concerts in 2019) it's 
good to see there's still demand.

Already beforehand I knew that this time it wouldn't be possible to get 
backstage to meet the band. Because of the corona virus epidemic the 
band were spending their time in Finland mostly in a bubble". Just from 
airport to hotel room and from there to the venue and then back to hotel 
after the show. After Heep set I just stayed for a while talking to some 
friends and then left.

The next morning I headed to the railway station to catch the train to 
next festival in Kerava which is a small city just outside Helsinki. 
This was part of a festival tour called Rock In The City. I walked to 
the Kotka harbour railway stop and I was there well in time. I had 
already bought the ticket with my mobile phone app but then I checked my 
phone and when I opened the app I noticed to my surprise it was told 
that my train was cancelled. The next train would leave after four 
hours.

This train would be too late because it would mean I would miss the 
first couple of bands at the festival. I checked the buss time tables 
and I noticed there was one leaving for Helsinki in just nine minutes. 
Bus station was on the other side of the city centre about 1 kilometer 
away. I had to think fast what to do. I decided I would have a go and 
see if I could make it in time. The railway yard was betwween the 
station and the city so it meant I had to go across the railway tracks 
and hope there would be a gate or some way open on the other side. I had 
to run against red lights and try to dodge the cars on my way but I made 
it two minutes before the bus would leave. It was two hours ride to 
Helsinki and then I would take the train to Kerava. It arrived in Kerava 
about the same time I would have with the original train but this cost 
me triple what the train ticket cost.

Rock In The City festival tour is - as the name says - focused on rock 
music so musically it was much more enjoyable than in Kotka, several 
great bands like Amorphis for example, they were the last act on the 
bill after Heep. The set was otherwise the same as in Kotka but Take 
Away My Soul was replaced by Too Scared To Run. Both songs were in the 
set on Living The Dream tour so no surpises but it was nice to hear this 
song again as it's one of my favourites from the time Pete Goalby was 
the singer. The reception from the audience was even more enthusiastic 
then the previous night but that was understandable because this was 
more rock oriented festival.

After the festival I just had to take the train to home. It's good that 
they have these festivals also near the capital area so don't have to 
stay the night at a hotel or travel for hours. Then there was two week's 
waiting for the next shows.

The third Finnish concert of this year was in Savonlinna in Eastern 
Finland ca. 350 kilometers away it was Thursday so I had to leave that. 
I just started a new job and it would have been difficult to take two 
days off from work. It was a pity because Savonlinna was the only one 
that was not a festival gig so I knew beforehand that the show would be 
longer than the others. Afterwards I heard they had played the normal 90 
minute set with songs added: three sonfs from LTD and Rainbow Demon. 
Anyway, still two more shows during weekend.

Friday's show was in Jyväskylä which is in the centre of Finland 300 
kilometers North from Helsinki. This was another Rock In The City 
festival and two of the bands were the same that I had already seen in 
Kerava but the last band was Apocalyptica and I was looking forward to 
that because I haven't seem them live in a long time. The Heep set was 
otherwise the same as in Kerava but one song shorter, Stealin' was left 
off so that they could fit the set in just one hour, in Kerava the gig 
had run a few minutes over. Another great gig and well receive gig.

After the gig I had a bit of luck as I just had happened to be passing 
by the VIP area when I saw Bernie, Phil and Dave coming out from 
backstage area. They had come to see the rest of the bands Sonata 
Arctica and Apocalyptica that were playing after Heep. It was nice to 
get to meet the guys even for just a short chat. The guys were in very 
happy mood and undestandably very pleased to be able to play live again 
and see also other band's concerts. I saw Phil and Dave also later and 
we watched Apocalyptica set together.

I had taken a hotel room in Jyväskylä and the next morning took a bus to 
Hartola where my wife's parents live. It's only 20 kilometers from 
Joutsa where the last gig was at Joutorock so I didn't have to get a 
hotel. There was a bus transportation from Hartola to Jousta and back 
after the festival which was very convenient. These are both small 
country towns and there wouldn't have been any public transport 
available at that time of the night.

At previous festivals there had always been more bands in the line-up 
after Heep but tonight Heep was the headliner with longer set so this 
was a good way to end the run of Finnish shows. The set was ca. 75 
minutes with eleven songs and it was great to see a bit longer set, 
Rainbow Demon wasn't played at those three gigs I had seen. After the 
festival was over there was over an hour to wait for the bus 
transportation to Hartola, arrived there about 2.30 am.

The interesting news was that Bernie announced on stage that the band 
would soon start recording the next studio album. Pre-production and 
rehearsals would start one week after the tour and after that the album 
recordings in September. They are happening actually at the moment 
although there hasn't been any official notification about this, nothing 
at uriah-heep.com, only a few pictures in Facebook page. There's no info 
yet on release date or title of the album or anything. I hope we'll soon 
get some new information.

There are already two shows for Heep scheduled next Summer in July 
together with Deep Purple and Accept. In Jyväskylä I had a chance to 
talk with Scampi - the tour manager - for a while and he told that there 
are also some more shows planned even before next Summer's concerts and 
those obviously will be much more interesting because in July's shows 
Heep is only the third band on the bill and the set most probably won't 
be that long. I hope the new album will be released early in 2022 and 
those will follow so that there will be some new stuff played at those.

This was the set in Savonlinna where the set was the longest:
1. Crazed By Heaven
2. Too Scared To Run
3. Take Away My Soul
4. Knocking At My Door
5. Stealin'
6. Rainbow Demon
7. Rocks In The Road
8. Gypsy
9. Look At Yourself
10. July Morning
11. Lady In Black
Encores:
12. Sunrise
13. Easy Livin'


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TapioM.
Email tapio at heepfiles.net
The HeepFiles website www.heepfiles.net