URIAH HEEP - LIVE

LIVE '73 As with all great and momentous moments in your life, there is a very good chance that you will remember where you were, and what you were doing when you heard the 1st strains of Live '73.

This album from the Classic Line up of Byron, Box, Hensley, Thain and Kerslake is perhaps the best live album ever produced. It has been compared to Deep Purple in Japan and others of that time. For Uriah Heep fans, this is the quintessential Uriah Heep.

Even the sound of the crowd is unmistakable as the golden voice of David Byron welcomes you to the opening strains of Hensley's keyboard as they launch into Sunrise. From that moment on, you are hooked. The entire album is picture perfect, and 100% Heep.

Recorded over 3 dates in 1973, you can't tell it wasn't one continuous show.. Ken Hensley has said of this release that "it was just one of those times when everything worked. We knew it was going to be good, but not this good".

Kerslake pounds the skins, and Thain is all OVER the bass neck with passages that bring the bottom end of the songs a completely and perfect complimentary basis in which the other members of the band can take advantage of.

Live '73 was welcomed by Uriah Heep fans everywhere, no one is less than 100% in awe of the songs and the recording. A mobile unit was used, and I have never heard of any major overdubs, so this is what you got if you were there.

The classic seperation of guitar and keybords stage right and left provide the fans with a very cool way to zero into the worlds of Hensley and Box.

The Hammond was in the now "required" form with the Leslie quite distorted, but never brash, and the rotor pullys definitely worked on. The lower speeding up and slowing down at a very slow rate (listen to the organ by itself on this album's version of Circle of Hands),and the upper spinning fast as if trying to escape from the very cabinet it's housed in. It's the finest example of the Hensley sound I know of.

Mick's Gibson SG is captured in all it's glory. It is clean and it's grinding depending on his mood. His performance was flawless in our minds. It is the very essense of Uriah Heep.

There are very now famous Heep-moments in this one.. "It's goin' out live tonight, so make a lot-o-noise..(Byron) "Would you welcome please England's own Uriah Heep" (Dell Roll) ...and "There's some chewing gum on me boot and I keep sticking on the stage", classic Byron !! How many of us have uttered that one !

There are more...but if you know them, then you too have been captured by Live '73 and I needen't say more.

Turn it on, turn it up, and prepare to dive into the way-back machine of Uriah Heep and enjoy what may be the very BEST in Classic Rock ! Dave White www.uriah-heep.com