Classic Rock
John Norum didn’t play with Europe at the autumn-season premiere of “På Spåret”, Swedish public television’s game show, on Friday 18 September. The guitarist has a hand injury, and Michael “Micke” Helgé Åkesson stood in for him.
The band was serving as the house band, which on that show means playing between questions and backing the guests. They played “GoldenEye”, the Tina Turner song, and Kansas’s “Carry On Wayward Son” with Jay Buchanan, the singer of Rival Sons.
Europe release “Come This Madness” on 25 September through Silver Lining Music. It’s eleven songs, produced by Tom Dalgety at RMV Studio in Stockholm, previewed with “One On One” on 28 April, “The Cult of Ignorance” on 3 June and “Scandinavian Eyes” on 1 September. It’s the band’s first album since “Walk the Earth”, from 2017.
Five days after the album’s release, the fortieth-anniversary tour for “The Final Countdown” begins in Glasgow.
Neither the band nor Norum have said when he got injured or whether he’ll be ready for the first date.
Text by Enric Vilaplana