This was without any doubt the best gig of the past years that I witnessed by Joey and his boys.
I have already seen quite a few live performances by Europe and it’s most pleasing to see that this Swedish act is as strong as ever. Europe are one of the most popular melodic hard rock acts to come out of the ’80’s and that is in no small part due to the good looks of front man Joey Tempest. Mister Tempest by the way has lost none of his vocal powers, covered the stage like his was still in his 20’s and was able to please the many female fans in attendance with his pretty face.
But the rest of the band (all original members!) also put on a spotless performance and on top of that the sound was simply prefect, which is not the case with many other acts.
A definite ear catcher were the excellent guitar parts of John Norum which were able to hold my attention from start to finish.
They opened their set with the title track of their newest platter “Last Look At Eden” followed by “Love Is Not The Enemy” from previous offering “Secret Society”.
But things really started heating up with the infectious “Superstitious” from “Out Of This World”. A bit further down the line the guys put the spot light on one of their earliest records “Wings Of Tomorrow” with excellent renditions of “Open Your Heart” and the title cut itself.
Towards the end of the regular set came the real classics in the shape of “Cherokee” and “Rock The Night”.
Two encores completed this truly wonderful evening: “The Beast” from newie “Last Look At Eden” and the band’s number one smash “The Final Countdown”.
Take it from me: if you weren’t there, you missed out on an first class dose of melodic hard rock.