Uriah Heep

Magician's Birthday Party

U.K., London

07-12-2001

Fridaymorning 6 o'clock the alarmclock rings. Hanneke and I wake up. Today we're going for the  weekend to London. Breakfast with the children, who stay at home with their grandparents. At 7.30 we take the bus to the railway station. It's amazing, but we arrive at Schiphol Airport without any delay. The plane leaves also at time. In the plane is another Dutch couple, which goes to Magician's Birthday Party. After a little chat with them we go to the Underground. We take the Picadilly Line to the City. During the trip we read the free newspaper Metro. In the column gigs there is a little announcement about Uriah Heep. Our hotel (Bayswater Inn) is situated near Bayswater Station. Due to a closed station (Earl's Court) and problems on the Circle LIne we arrive at one o'clock at the hotel.

In the hotel the receptions whispers to us: "There's a problem. We don't have enough rooms because of a reconstruction of the building. We've transfered you to the Central Park Hotel, bla bla bla." We weren't so glad with this news because we hoped to meet Pete Wharton who stays in the same hotel. But after leaving a message we went to the new hotel, which is more close to the Underground station Queensway. The rooms are nice. After drinking a cup of tea, we left the hotel. Because of the beautiful weather we took the bus to the Kensington Hilton. After enetering the club we met Rodrigo Werneck, Louis Rentrop, Brian and Lorraine Jones, Egil and Marianne Bokn, Boris Schnitzler, Dana Dyck and a lot more Heep fans. We were just in time for the Heep quiz. I answered 28 from the 30 questions, which was not enough. Louis Rentrop, Tapio Minkinnen and another guy answered 30 questions. They had to play an airguitar battle on Stealin'.  Louis and Tapio had a light advance because they know each other. So they played a nice guitar battle. The winner was chosen by the audience. 

Louis Rentrop may call himself Heepfan of the World.

After the quiz the Heep Club ended and the people were leaving the Hilton. Together with Dana we were leaving the hotel as Louis introduced as to the Dutch fomer-Focus flutist Thijs van Leer. We had a nice chat, asked for his autograph and made some pictures. Then we walked together in the direction of Shepherds Bush Empire. Thijs, Louis and the others went inside and we went for a shopping in the neighborhood. When we went back we just saw Mick Box and John Wetton arriving at the SBE. I was awaken enough to ask the autograph of John. After this we went to the pub. More about this on the next page.

             Dana                           Thijs                                     Evert