LIVE IN EUROPE 1979

This collection of live tracks only saw the light of day some years after its recording. It is not by any means the best live album by the band, and when compared to the Live '73 album, does not stand up at all well. The over-riding priority here seems to be audience participation. There are simply far too many tracks which require an audience response to a simple chorus or chant.

By 1979, David Byron and Gary Thain had left the classic line up, being replaced by John Lawton and Trevor Boulder respectively. Audiences however still demanded to hear a good proportion of material from the band's Byron era albums, hence we have Lawton singing songs such as "Easy livin'", "Look at yourself", and "July Morning". Unfortunately, all this does is serves to emphasise the reason why the band's style had to change when Lawton replaced Byron. Lawton certainly sounds comfortable when singing the songs he recorded with Uriah Heep, such as "Who needs me" and "Falling in love", but his vocal style is simply too far removed from that of his predecessor to allow him to do justice to the old favourites. This probably explains why he resorts to the aforementioned audience participation so often (Unlike Byron on the "Live '73"! album, he doesn't actually say "Help us out here", but the message is clear!).

The album opens with a run through a few Uriah Heep standards, but it's only when Ken Hensley takes over lead vocal for "Lady in black" that the more familiar Heep sound appears. Even he can't resist the urge to maintain the Karaoke party night atmosphere.

Lawton sounds better on "The wizard" which has the usual live segue into "July Morning". I'm not too keen on the staccato backing to Hensley's Hammond organ solo on the live versions of "July morning" something which remained a feature until Hensley rejoined the band for the first "Magician's Birthday party" concert. Things get out of hand completely by the time of "Sweet Lorraine" which is dragged out though a tedious cry and response section for almost 13 minutes. The legendary "Gypsy" on the other hand is run through with indecent haste.

John Lawton is a fine vocalist, and the studio albums he made with Uriah Heep were designed to suit his vocals well. He style and delivery are far too rough and bluesy though for the Byron era songs which the Uriah Heep audiences expect, indeed demand, to hear. That coupled with the "you had to be there" nature of the audience participation thought the album, makes "Live in Europe" a disappointing and entirely dispensable collection.

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