When I first received this bootleg there was some confusion, on my part anyway, It was tagged as 'Heep live acoustic set at the Magicians' Birthday party 2003' Which I immediately questioned as I was at that show and the acoustic part was only four songs long and performed in the middle of the set, so that meant it had to be from 2002 when Heep played two different sets over two nights as part of the Classic Rock Productions Classic Rock Festival in London (I was at both shows) or was it from the US shows?. Well the big give away for me is obviously Bernie saying goodbye to London at the end of the show. I also did a search on the Internet for heep bootleg artwork and came up with this
Now far for me to contradict someone else's hard work but I cannot see how Heep could possibly have played this venue, on this night, as they were several miles up the road at the Shepherds Bush Empire I may have had a few drinks that evening but I think I should know which venue I was at(also some one somewhere has written that the mean fiddler is just another name for the Astoria, again not true although they are part of the same building they are different venues)
This was a truly memorable weekend for me with not only Heep on the bill (Twice) but also John Lawton, Focus and Asia amongst others The whole weekend was centred around the Heep Festival Club see below
Day 1
As well as purchasing my copy of Dave Ling's excellent book Wizards and Demons I also managed to get it signed by Dave himself and both Mick and Trevor who were present at the festival club and also by Phil who I quite literally bumped into an hour or so before the show on Shepards Bush Green. Focus were on before Heep this evening and bloody brilliant they were too
Day 2
Now this day turned out to be really memorable having failed miserably at the 'Ultimate Heep Fan Quiz' the previous day I was determined to enjoy myself and what better way to do that than by splashing out at the auction
I wasn't particularly bothered which lot I won, I was just determined to win one, and so with a lot of conservative bidding going on at the start, I picked up the signed John lawton gig shirt for the princely sum of twenty quid (This shirt has since been framed and is hanging on my wall as I Wright this). I was happy with my purchase and as I went to collect it I was offered several different ways of paying for it (I had just assumed it would be cash only and I didn't have too much on me) Well when I saw a credit card option my eyes just lit up and I went running back to the auction to see what else I could pick up and i had my sights set on lot 11 which after some fierce bidding that consisted of me just standing there with my hand up until everyone else had given up I won and that too is hanging on my wall right next to Lawtons shirt. I had about an hour or so to kill between the Heep club and the gig so it was of back to the hotel to store my purchases and then back to the venue for the gig
Uriah Heep opened this evening with the acoustic set which I am not going to review as you can hear it for yourself and make you own judgements.
Asia were the main act of the evening and unfortunately I only managed to catch the first 2 or 3 songs as i had been made aware of the fact Lee Kerslake was in the bar (I was upstairs in the seated area) so I took that opportunity to meet him and spent the best part of Asia's set drinking with one of my boyhood hero's.
He also signed the back of the credit card stub with which I had purchased the platinum disc with
It just doesn't get better than that
The acoustic set from The Shepherds Bush Empire Sat 30th Nov 2002
01 The Easy Road
.02 Question
03 Tales
04 Rainbow Demon
05 Circus
06 Why Did You Go
07 The Wizard
08 Heartless Land
09 Blind Eye
10 The Other Side Of Midnight
11 The Way That It Is
12 Rain
13 Dream On
