[Heeplist] Heep in Finland 2021 report

Fri Sep 17 14:21:13 EDT 2021

Thank you Pete. I was planning to come to England on 50th anniversary 
tour. That's now moved to Autumn 2022. I hope to see you then.

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

Pete Wharton kirjoitti 17.9.2021 19:30:
> Excellent reviews of your adventures, Tapmeister. Here's hoping we can
> get to a gig together sometime.
> 
> Pete
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Heeplist [mailto:heeplist-bounces at travellersintime.com] On
> Behalf Of Tapio Minkkinen
> Sent: 17 September 2021 12:20
> To: Heepsters Mailing List (Travellers in Time) 
> <heeplist at travellersintime.com>
> Subject: [Heeplist] Heep in Finland 2021 report
> 
> 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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