Formed in 1979, Europe are a Swedish rock band who initially gained attention in their home country when they won the TV competition ‘Rock-SM’ (aka the Swedish Rock Championships). Since then, their levels of success have transcended those of the competition itself; the band has sold over 10 million records worldwide and had numerous hits including ‘Rock the Night’ and ‘The Final Countdown’. They are also known for their exciting, energetic live shows, both in their early days and in recent years.
One notable live show came in the form of their 30th anniversary show, recorded at the Sweden Rock Festival and released in 2013. The group played for over two hours, but as you might expect the highlight of the night was when they played their signature song ‘The Final Countdown’. The band’s energy and youthful exuberance were almost overwhelming, and the festival’s sizeable crowd jumped in time with the music and screamed for more as soon as they heard the track’s iconic opening fanfare.
The band’s lead singer Joey Tempest in particular was a vision of spirited enthusiasm, running around the stage, waving his microphone stand in the air and unleashing his powerful, vibrato-infused voice that still sounded almost exactly the same as it did on the original record. His enthusiastic cries of “Sweden!” kept the crowd buzzing throughout the song, and even after 30 years it was clear that both he and the rest of the band were still blessed with a blatant star quality.
But it wasn’t just ‘The Final Countdown’ that went down a storm at Europe’s 30th Anniversary gig, Music Man readers. Another popular song included in the set was ‘Let the Good Times Rock’, a hard rock song released as a single by the band in 1989. Again, the group brought a colossal amount of energy to bear on the live version, with Tempest keeping the audience engaged and guitarist John Norum blasting out piercing riffs and fiery solos with all the flourish of a true guitar god.
As many Music Man readers will no doubt agree, Europe are clearly an incredibly talented group of musicians who really come to life during live performances. As proved by these clips from their gig in Sweden in 2013, even when they were more than 30 years into their career they still knew how to get their audiences into the palm of their hands, with a little help from iconic songs like ‘The Final Countdown’ that have really stood the test of time.
