URIAH HEEP - LIVE

Well, I have to admit that I haven't heard all of this since about three years after it came out, but I have listened to much of it in bits and pieces recently. I'll try to come up with the good and the bad.

The good: The recording is not too bad. Mick Box has a decent guitar sound. Ken Hensley knows how to move his fingers, if not alway what it will sound like when he does so. And, un, he works the Leslie well.

The bad: Gary Thain, and to a lesser extent Hensley, had technical proficiency and absolutely no musicality whatsoever. Thain's all over the fretboard, but to what purpose? It's like he's desparately trying to plug holes in the sound. The songs... eh, there's a reason people thought "This Is Spinal Tap" was a documentary. And David Byron is, without a doubt, the most bombastic, least musical, least *swinging* vocalist I've ever heard. And the high-pitched, high-pinched screams... aarrgghh! Did *no one* realize how bad this sounded? It sounds like someone's squeezing a cat!

You know, even as a stoned sixteen year old I could tell this stunk, but I thought it was fun. Now, it just stinks, and worst of all you can tell the band has no idea. Embarrassing.