The Final Countdown Tour
The first leg of the Swedish tour started in Gävle on 29 April 1986. The album hadn't been released yet because the cover art hadn't been completed, but Europe was forced to start the scheduled tour. The album was eventually released on 26 May, the same day as the band played the last concert on the leg, at Solnahallen in Solna. The band did two concerts at Solnahallen, on 25 and 26 May. These concerts were filmed for a TV broadcast, which would later be released on VHS and DVD, entitled The Final Countdown Tour 1986. A 20th anniversary edition of the DVD was released in 2006. The promotional music video for "The Final Countdown" was shot partly during the soundchecks for those concerts and partly during the actual concerts.
Europe went on a Japanese tour in September 1986, playing four concerts in Tokyo and one concert each in Nagoya and Osaka. During that tour, guitarist and band co-founder John Norum told the other band members that he wanted to leave the band, due to musical differences and a disagreement with the band's manager, Thomas Erdtman. Norum agreed to stay in the band for the second leg of the Swedish tour, which started in Örebro on 26 September 1986, as well as a promotion tour around Europe including TV appearances and interviews. He made his last appearance with the band for a Sky Channel broadcast at the club Escape in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on 31 October 1986.
Norum was then replaced by Kee Marcello, who had just left another Swedish rock band, Easy Action. At first Marcello had been hesitant to join Europe, because he had put a lot of work into Easy Action's upcoming album That Makes One. After some consideration he changed his mind and decided to join the band. He appeared in the music videos for "Rock the Night", "Cherokee" and "Carrie," before making his first TV appearance with the band at Peters Popshow in Dortmund, West Germany on 12 December 1986.
The European leg of the tour started in Bergen, Norway on 24 January 1987 and ended in Genoa, Italy on 3 March 1987. A concert done at Hammersmith Odeon, London on 23 February, was filmed and released on video, entitled The Final Countdown World Tour.
On 15 April 1987 the band started their first U.S. tour at The Warfield Theatre in San Francisco. The tour ended in Philadelphia on 17 May 1987, as the band had been playing in 23 cities and traveling 14,565 km. A Swedish TV crew followed the band on the tour, producing the documentary Europe in America, which would be shown on TV and released on video.
Europe ended the Final Countdown Tour at the Roskilde Festival in Roskilde, Denmark on 4 July 1987.
Read more about this topic: The Final Countdown (album)
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