The perfect birthday present for the Uriah Heep fan in your life. Watch their eyes well up as they tear open the wrapping paper and find the missing link in their voluminous collection: a CD/ DVD package of the band’s 1989 London Astoria show, previously available only on VHS.
It’s special because it marks the end of Heep’s wilderness years and the start of their renaissance with singer Bernie Shaw that has continued ever since. Not that it felt like anything momentous at the time. The 1989 tour might have marked their 20th anniversary, but having been through 15 lineup changes before Shaw’s arrival in 1986 there wasn’t much to celebrate. All semblance of continuity had gone. Shaw was their fifth vocalist in the 10 years since David Byron had been fired, but crucially he had both the voice and the frontman persona to stop the rot.
The Raging Silence album that preceded the tour (four songs from which are included here) was a cautious affair that the Heep fan seldom plays, but Raging Through The Silence demonstrates that playing live Heep were already in recovery and Shaw had mastered their 70s greatest hits. Indeed it would be another 18 years before the line-up changed again.
