Europe at the De Montfort Hall, Leicester.

This is the Time Capsule, 40^th Anniversary Tour or An Evening with Europe to Celebrate the 40^th Anniversary of the band’s self-titled, first album.

The current line-up of Joey Tempest, John Norum, Mic Michaeli, John Levin and Ian Haugland has remained unchanged sine the band reformed in late 2003, and existed for a short time between 1984 and 1986 when John Norum decided to leave the band due to ‘musical differences’.

This is also the line-up responsible for the band’s best known single (by a country mile) taken from an album of the same name, released in 1986 – The Final Countdown, and no gig would be complete without a rousing rendition of that single – tonight was no exception.

The band put on 2 one-hour sets each preceded by a ten minute video exploring the history of the band.

The audience comprised of just under 1,400 fans, all seated – well, mostly seated; once the band struck up a chord a good number were on their feet and down at the front. Now, contrary to logical thinking this made the photographing of the band a little easier because the idea was that photographers would shoot from the sides of the stage so as not to block the views of the audience but once on their feet, mingling with the fans in front of the stage made for some better opportunities! That said, the security folk didn’t know whether to order everyone back to their seats or let them get on with it – the latter prevailed.

Songs from across the 40-year life of the band were on the setlist and during the Part 1 of the show both the first single, Seven Door Hotel, released in 1983, and Hold Your Head Up, released earlier this year, were played.

The chatter from most of the band was both interesting and rousing and the 12-song first half setlist was varied and as good as I’ve heard the band play.

Setlist – Part 1.

On Broken Wings

Seven Door Hotel

Rock the Night

Start from the Dark

Walk the Earth

Hold Your Head Up

Dreamer

War of Kings

Vasastan

Girl from Lebanon

Carrie

Stormwind

The second half of the show started just like the first, a showing of a ten minute video with more history and anecdotes.

The same ‘rules’ applied to the opening three songs for us photographers, their own rules applied to the audience so it was mix and match once again. It was nice to see Joey Tempest pick up a guitar early on in this part of the show and that continued when he and John Norum put on a mini acoustic show featuring two songs, both covers, Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water and David Bowie’s Space Oddity.

Throughout the show there were various instrumental interludes including a lengthy drum solo from Ian Haugland. The band engaged with the audience throughout the show with tales from the band’s history and intimate fist-pumps with those that decided to stage up to the stage. The choice of songs seemed to invoke different memories for different people but one thing was clear, the fanbase was rock solid and they didn’t let the band forget that.

Of course, everybody was waiting for that one song and the band kept them waiting until the very last one of the night but as soon as the opening notes to The Final Countdown were played the entire audience was on its feet and cheering as loud as they possibly could – it was deafening!

With 20 or so studio and live albums under their belt plus numerous compilations, singles and EPs the band have given back to their fans in spade-loads and shows like this just send a reminder that they are as popular now as they have ever been. Joey Tempest is the epitome of a frontman, he displays humour and humility along with a firm appreciation that it’s the fans who have made the band what they are today. Hopefully that will continue for the foreseeable future with no Final Countdown for the band being on the cards coming anytime soon.

My personal thanks go to Staffan Lindahl for his help in securing some signatures on photographs of Joey Tempest.

Setlist – Part 2.

Always the Pretenders

Ninja

Prisoners in Paradise

Sign of the Times

Joey Tempest and John Norum play ‘Smoke on the Water’ and ‘Space Oddity’ (acoustic)

Last Look at Eden

Open Your Heart

Memories

More Than Meets the Eye

[Ian Haugland drum solo]