Possibly the best value bill doing the rounds at the moment, and The Damn Truth are on at seven o’clock to prove the point. On plenty of other nights, either of the two bands supporting Europe could be headlining.
There’s something just a little mystical about the Canadians. The Jefferson Airplane intro tape, “White Rabbit”, suits them perfectly, and watching them, you could half imagine you’d wandered into a hippie commune. One with some mighty songs, mind you.
“Be Somebody” is as radio friendly as you like, and “Love Outta Luck” has the sort of chorus that explains why The Damn Truth keep winning people over. Tom Shemer’s guitar sounds somehow more raw in the flesh, adding a little extra bite to it all.
“The Willow” slows things down and lets the mystical side take over. It also gives Lee-La Baum the chance to stretch out, and goodness me, there’s some talent in that voice. “This Is Who We Are Now” is another great rocker, although it also offers the opportunity to observe that nobody dances quite like bassist PY Letellier. You suspect he’d be doing exactly the same thing if there were ten people here.
“All Night Long” has a groove, an energy and the promise of something just a little nefarious. They turn it into a bit of a jam, giving a glimpse of how far they could stretch these songs if they fancied it. “Tomorrow” finishes things with the sense that tomorrow can wait. There’s trouble to be had tonight, and The Damn Truth will happily find it.
They have more of the audience on their side than an early opening slot usually allows. A room full recognising quality when they hear it, perhaps. There’s plenty more of that to come.
Cards on the table. I’ve loved Gun since I was about 14, hearing “Taking On The World” on Tommy Vance’s Friday Rock Show. To their credit, though, nearly half of this set comes from “Hombres”, the album they released a couple of years ago. They’ve every reason to believe in those songs.
“Lucky Guy” opens, and if that’s something new, then “Don’t Say It’s Over” is something awesome. I’ve said this a million times on this website, but had Bon Jovi got hold of that song, it would have gone gold. It remains an absolute beauty.
“All Fired Up” is another from the current record, while “Falling” brings a touch of Def Leppard to the balladry. The older ones still have all their swagger, though, and “Better Days” is superb. By the time “Take Me Back Home” encourages some participation, Gun have won this crowd over completely.
Dante Gizzi is a really good frontman. He reckons they’ve never played this venue before, although the “Swagger” tour brought them here in the 1990s. To be fair, he wasn’t the frontman then and was the bassist, and there’s plenty from those days still worth celebrating.
“Word Up!” might be a cover, but Gun have long since made it their own. “Shame On You”, from that magnificent debut, still sounds magnificent, and “Steal Your Fire”, from the second album, ends things with the band crowding around the drums and enjoying the moment.
And so they should. Gun belong right up there with The Quireboys, Little Angels and The Almighty among the finest bands of that era. One of its most underrated, too. Nights like this make you wonder how that happened.
Europe are a heavier band than people often give them credit for. The bombastic, classical opening suits them, and then “Scandinavian Eyes”, from the newly released “Come This Madness”, announces where they are right now. Joey Tempest stands on the drums, surveying a crowd considerably bigger than the ones I remember seeing them in front of 15 or 20 years ago. It’s richly deserved.
He barely looks a day older than he did in 1986, either. More on that later.
“Walk The Earth” is power metal by any other name, before “Superstitious” supplies the first massive hit. John Norum’s solo is the first of many brilliant ones, while John Levén’s bass drives “One On One”, possibly the highlight of the new record.
The taped “Prelude” ushers in “Last Look At Eden”, arguably the album from which this run of superb stuff really gathered momentum. The song itself is utterly gargantuan. When they follow it with “War Of Kings”, you realise just how good Europe are as a band. There’s a weight and confidence to all of this that comes from five musicians knowing exactly what they can do together.
Mic Michaeli’s piano begins “Prisoners In Paradise”, before “The Cult Of Ignorance” makes another compelling case for the new album. Plenty of their contemporaries are content to live on past glories. Europe are still making tremendous records, and these songs thoroughly deserve their place here.
This evening, though, is also a celebration of something from the past. “On Broken Wings” provides the bridge, with pictures from those days filling the screen behind them. Proper metal, and a reminder that even a B-side from 1986 had something about it.
Then the second half is given over to that album, 40 years on.
They start with “Rock The Night”, (you can spot the missing one) the first big moment of this part of the show, although “big” is fairly relative given what’s already happened. “Carrie” puts Michaeli back in the spotlight, with Tempest conducting the crowd as they sing it for him. He knows precisely when to let a room take over.
“Danger On The Track” brings some fun, with pretend rehearsals and the crew joining in the messing about. Listen past that, though, and you’re reminded how much Deep Purple there was in this band even then. “Ninja” reinforces it. I’ll admit I hadn’t heard some of these songs in ages, but they’ve stood up remarkably well.
“Cherokee” gives drummer Ian Haugland his moment, and it’s around here that you really have to give Tempest his due. He’s a tremendous frontman, with the athleticism, the looks and the sheer enthusiasm of a bloke nowhere near his 63 years. He works the crowd brilliantly, but there’s an enjoyment to it all that makes it feel natural.
Before “Time Has Come”, he talks about going to San Francisco to mix the record. You wonder how many of them imagined they’d still be playing it four decades later. That song and “Heart Of Stone” prove that, even down among the deeper cuts, this was a great album.
“On The Loose” is raw and proof positive that the best songs don’t date. “Love Chaser” is one I probably hadn’t heard for 30 years, yet it sounds fresh enough to make you wonder why you left it so long.
There is, of course, one song from this record that nobody has managed to avoid in those intervening decades.
“The Final Countdown” is everything “The Final Countdown” should be. Deliberately over the top, utterly ridiculous and absolutely enormous. We’re heading for Venus again, everyone knows it, and everyone is swept along. Europe have better songs, but this remains an absolute showstopper.
There’s no encore. They’ve just played one of the biggest rock songs in the world. They don’t need one.
For all the success of that song, Europe have spent plenty of the subsequent 40 years slightly under the radar. They never quite reached the stadium level of obvious contemporaries such as Bon Jovi, but you could make a persuasive argument that their modern body of work is much stronger.
Tonight gives you every reason to make it. A wonderful celebration of a great record, delivered by a band still producing great records. An arena show on a smaller scale. One of the best shows of 2026.
