[Heeplist] Heep in Finland 2021 report

[Merrick]

Nice review 
Merrick 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Sep 17, 2021, at 2:22 PM, Tapio Minkkinen <tapio at heepfiles.net> wrote:
> 
> 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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> 
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