[Heeplist] Heep in Finland 2021 report

[Bob Winward]

Tapio, thank you for taking the time to write and share your adventure.  I had forgot that Heep was touring again. The last year and half of Covid and cancel culture has won many of us down.  

It is nice to hear they are recording again, but I have no idea what to expect. 

Lastly "Too Scared to run" is a favorite of their tour manager Scampy. 

Bob Winward
Some Heep is Good Heep!


> On Sep 17, 2021, at 7:38 AM, Tapio Minkkinen <tapio at heepfiles.net> wrote:
> 
> 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'
> 
> 
> ---
> TapioM.
> Email tapio at heepfiles.net
> The HeepFiles website www.heepfiles.net
> 
> 
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