EUROPE-The Final Countdown 30th Anniversary Show

Hell & Back Recordings/Silver Lining Music

In the beginning of their career, 1983 till 1991, Europe was always my guilty pleasure band with classic singalong pop/rock songs like ,,The Final Countdown”, ,,Carrie” or ,,Open Your Heart”. However, with their sixth studio album called ‘Start From The Dark’, the band around singer Joey Tempest had matured and that completely underrated album was their best effort by far. Two years ago Europe released ‘War Of Kings’ and that album definitely was the musical highlight of these Swedish rockers so far. Last year their most successful album, commercially speaking, ‘The Final Countdown’ celebrated its 30^th anniversary and therefore the band recorded a special double album with DVD live at the Roundhouse in London. The first CD contains all the 12 songs of the ‘War Of Kings’ album in a slightly different order. The sound of this album is really awesome, Tempest sings his lungs out and Norum plays guitar like a young Swedish god. Especially his guitar solos in ,,Vasastan”, ,,War Of Kings” and ,,Light It Up” are almost out of this world; this man can still play a mean guitar! The second CD contains all of the songs of ‘The Final Countdown’, so starting with the very successful title track and ending with ,,Love Chaser” and I have to say that all of these songs really stand the test of time as they are all still real guilty pleasures to me; I even singalong every time I listen to this album….. The DVD of course features the same songs, so 23 in total and you can see that the band is really on fire and enjoying themselves. The sound is great, the camera work is excellent and the audience is really into the music from the beginning till the end. A must for Europe fans and I am really looking forward to their show in Eindhoven on 8 September.