I cannot but start posting on this blog by talking about one of my favorite bands ever:
Europe! (see also
their page on wikipedia).
They released their new album,
Secret Society.
I definitely like this new album, and actually more than the previous one,
Start From The Dark. That album is actually very important since it represents their reunion and return after 13 long years! In fact, before Start From the Dark, their last work was
Prisoners in Paradise in 1991.
I knew Europe in 1989, during the tour of
Out of This World, which is still one of my favorite records ever! That tour (it was actually my second concert ever, the first one was the concert of
Eighth Wonder!) was also very important for me, since after I discovered with my eyes that
Open Your Heart (my favorite song of that record at that time) was played by a guitar (yes, I was quite ignorant about music at that time :-) - it was played by Joey Tempest on an acoustic guitar - I wanted to start playing guitar. My decision was also due to the fact that I was simply astonished by the way
Kee Marcello played guitar in that concert! His playing was fantastic!
Since then, I started buying all the records from Europe. Of course, I already knew
The Final Countdown, but basically I knew the most famous tracks. I then listened to all the tracks and all the tracks were amazing.
Then I bought
Wings of Tomorrow, another very powerful yet melodic record. I discovered that
Open Your Heart was already in that record (although I must admit that the version in Out of This World is much better and sounds greater). This record, more than The Final Countdown, shows what a great guitar player John
Norum already was at that age!
Finally, I bought also the first record (simply called
Europe). Well, I can't say I don't like it, but surely you can hear they were at the very beginning, of course a great beginning, don't get me wrong! In fact that record contains
Seven Doors Hotel, what a song, and what middle part solo!
Having said this, you can imagine the sadness when I got to know in the early 90s that they stopped playing. Of course, each of them had their solo career, but those careers... well... were not very appealing, at least to me!
However, in the late 90s their reunion was in the air; a very good news was their preliminary reunion playing in Stockholm for the new year's day, in 1999-2000. They played in 6, since both John
Norum and
Kee Marcello played in that concert, although they performed only
The Final Countdown and
Rock the Night.
Then, the very good news came out few years ago, and the reunion became reality with
Start From the Dark! At a first listening I didn't enjoy that record that much; it was surely different from their previous music. However, it is very powerful (surely thanks to John
Norum's guitar playing, although I actually prefer Kee as a guitar player) and after the second listening I started enjoying it!
But the magic moment was on November 2004, when they came on tour in Milan for the first time after 13 years! I went there and the concert was simply magic! They played many great songs, basically songs for fans, since they did not choose only the singles, but also old songs such as
Seven Door Hotel, and
Wings of Tomorrow, and unreleased songs such as
Yesterday's News (it was a b-side originally). It was also quite odd the fact that they only played
Girl from Lebanon from
Prisoners in Paradise.
The second song was
Ready or Not, one of my favorite songs ever, with a great solo (originally played by
Kee, but played greatly by John as well) and I got really emotional at that very moment. On that occasion they also played
Heart of Stone (which was not played later in other dates of tour, at least in Italy, as far as I know).
A really magical moment. On that occasion they only came to Milan, but then, in 2005 they came back with more dates in their tour, and they also came to Florence, my own town, and of course I went to the concert also on that occasion :-) By the way, in that tour, my dear friend
Jacopo Meille (who also sings with me our Deep Purple cover band,
Purple Sucker) with his own band
Mantra, opened Europe's concerts!
Well, now this new record,
Secret Society, is great, in my opinion much more than Start From the Dark. Songs are different from each other and they tend to be more melodic (which is something I love most). John's guitar is even better in this record. Unfortunately, the effects on Joey's voice are not that great... probably the voice is far too compressed and in some sense spoils the vocal lines in some songs.
Look forward to seeing them in tour again! Rock On!