Uriah Heep

Magician's Birthday Party

U.K., London

07-12-2001

Inside the Shepherds Bush Empire

  The Shepherds Bush Empire is a very beautiful, old venue.

I wondered what level 2 meant on our ticket, but when we had to walk upon the stairs, I knew it.

We had a beautiful seat on the second floor with a good look at Ken 's organ.

The only thing we couldn't see were the three ladies on the left side of the stage, but we had a good view on the audience.

The warming up gig was done by Stella and Trevor Hensley. They did a beautiful job, just like they did on the Heepvention 2000. A few tracks of them can be found on "Heepsteria" (the Uriah Heep tribute CD).

Finally Dave Owen announced URIAH HEEP. The opening song was Return to fantasy, followed by Universal wheels. For me Tales was the opening song of "the Magician's Birthday Party". Thijs van Leer played the flute on this track and did that very well. He even sang Tales on the old Focus-style. In Dutch we call it "jodelen".

                                                                        Tales was followed by Sweet pretender and Between two worlds accompenied by three ladies. Thijs came back in Mistress of all time. This track was followed by a beautifull version of I'll keep on tryin' from Very eavy Very umble.

July morning was the first song featuring Ken Hensley on organ (in the spotlight)

Even more beautiful was Paradise/The spell.