Europe Live was like a bottle of champagne, everything up until the end was just lovely, bubbly, and sparkling, but the end with the ‘80s soundtrack, “The Final Countdown,” just burst the cap off, and the audience went insane!
Starting this memorable evening with some of their new songs: “Got To Have Faith” and “America”… good tunes, but it seemed like most fans were waiting for something to sing a long to, and finally the sing-a-longs all came like pearls on a string: “Superstitious,” “Wings of Tomorrow,” “Let the Good Times Rock”, “Sign of the Times,” and a beautiful acoustic version of “Carrie” with Joey Tempest on guitars and a wave of hands and lighters from the audience.
Their new songs were a bit harder than what you may be used to from Europe, and especially “Wake Up Call” caught everyone’s attention. This song has potential and certainly rocked the place! “Hero” was another one that could be a hit… a really nice and calm song.
In between, Joey also introduced the band, madman Ian Haugland served us with a wicked drum solo, and John Norum, “Mr. Long Lost Guitar Player,” gave the crowd “goose bumps” with his guitar solos. Insane guitar handling!
Tempest also talked a lot in-between songs, but unfortunately he just sounded blurry and it was hard to understand what was said. The same thing happened during some of the songs.
John Leven, the band’s only single guy, disappointed a bit. While Joey Tempest was jumping around and having a lot of fun on stage by throwing his mic stand around like he’s never done anything else, John Leven was just standing there all calm and uninterested. So much for hoping he’d put it all out there!
But the band still looked good… well, even better than before! Other than for Joey’s puddle hair-do being gone, and Ian Haugland hair being all gone, they basically look the same. They still sound spectacular and they managed to fill up the house with everything from old rockers to young kids with their Von Dutch hats, so definitely Europe will be one of those 80s bands that will stick around this decade as well… and we all loved the 80s!!!
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