EUROPE – Live! At Shepherd’s Bush London (2011)

Sweden’s biggest hard rock export EUROPE returned to the UK in 2011 with the Balls ‘N’ Banners tour exactly one year since their last tour on these shores.

With no new album to promote, they nonetheless succeeded in selling out the Shepherd’s Bush Empire and thrilled the audience with a formidable performance.

They filmed this gig for a live DVD and CD, just released.

Singer Joey Tempest wears his frontman shoes with true spirit and together with the original line-up of John Norum on guitar, John Leven on bass, Mic Michaeli on keyboards and Ian Haughland on drums, delivers maximum power and joy. Opening up with the title track of their current album “Last Look At Eden”, the five-piece played a few numbers from this, from the more aggressive “The Beast” to the sweet “New Love In Town”, which the now London-based singer dedicated to the birth of his son three years ago.

Naturally their classics were not forgotten and it was with these that the crowd sang at the top of their lungs, making “Rock The Night”, “Carrie”, “Superstitious” and “The Final Countdown” the highlights of the evening.

From previous albums a good selection of songs came along, including “Scream Of Anger”, “Seventh Sign”, “Start From The Dark” and a song they hadn’t played in a long time prior to this tour, the catchy “More Than Meets The Eye” from 1988’s ‘Out Of This World’.

On “Live! At Shepherd’s Bush, London”, Europe rocked the audience to the core.

Europe have a knack of writing anthemic songs that everyone can join in with, which is an undeniably attractive proposition when concerning fan acquisition and although the band is over 30 years old, it would be a silly mistake thinking they have gone soft.

This recording sounds big, meaty, perfectly recorded and mixed.

Recommended.

01 – Prelude

02 – Last look at eden

03 – The beast

04 – Rock the night

05 – Scream of anger

06 – No stone unturned

07 – Carrie

08 – The gataway plan

09 – Seventh sign

10 – New love in town

11 – Love is not the enemy

12 – More than meets the eye

13 – Always the pretenders

14 – Start from the dark

15 – Superstitious

16 – The final countdown

Joey Tempest – lead vocals, rhythm & acoustic guitars

John Norum – lead & rhythm guitars, backing vocals

John Levén – bass guitar

Mic Michaeli – keyboards, backing vocals

Ian Haugland – drums, backing vocals

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