Primal Fear

Meshuggah

Jorn

Firebrands

Eluveitie

A.O.T.W.

more interviews?

Band:Europe DVD:The Final Countdown Tour Released by:MVD Writer: Mark Carras Media: MySpace Click Album Cover To Buy Now

So the main part of the DVD is a concert they did pretty much at their commercial peak (see review of other DVD for their artistic peak). It has all the hits, the recording is great, the camera work is the best available in 1986. For a recording done during this era, you could not ask for any better quality. The band does a great job as well. This entire package is a total pro job all the way through. The menu is one of the easiest to navigate that I have found in awhile. If I had to nit pick one complaint, it would be that the sub-titles don’t work. For a music DVD, I love using the sub-titles to splash the lyrics across the screen when I watch. It is a nice way to offer that option to fans. Ok, some deaf people might enjoy having it there too. I just wanted to point out that the feature benefits more fans than most people think it does. Other than that small (except for the deaf fans of course) complaint, this DVD is something that every Europe fan needs to get.

When I first saw the band Europe (around the same time this DVD was recorded), I thought the band was too polished and too late for the glam band train. Since watching their other DVD of a more recent concert, and reading up on the band, I found out the band was a straight up rock band for a much larger amount of time then they were the campy glam band most know them as. Joey Tempest was the perfect glam frontman. His charisma is almost blinding in this performance. Now this would have bugged the hell out of me back when I first discovered the band, but now I find it to be a really thrilling guilty pleasure that reminds me of my high school days. Times have changed, the band has changed, and the perspective most of us have has changed as well. So even if you hated the over polished image of the band way back when, you might find this as enjoyable as the current ‘anti-image’ the band has.

There is a very recent interview with the band looking back on the album “The Final Countdown” and all that the era involved at the time. This is almost as long as the concert itself, but it doesn’t drag or get boring (at least to me). There is also a seven minute documentary of the band going back to the studio that they recorded ‘The Final Countdown’ in. Now of course they also have the typical ‘filler’ extras here to make the extras menu look more full than it really is, but honestly does anyone ever even look at the text bio on a DVD, or a photo gallery, or any of this other crap? I doubt it. With that being said, the concert footage alone is all you need to make this worth it’s price. The ‘flashback’ interview is great too, but the concert is what will incite multiple viewings. That is the part that made this DVD Rock My Monkey!

Band:Europe DVD:The Final Countdown Tour Released by:MVD Writer: Mark Carras Media: MySpace Click Album Cover To Buy Now

To post comments CLICK HERE!