The song has been used for everything from the closing ceremony of the 1988 Summer Olympics, to the Detroit Pistons' game opening theme song. It also makes for one hell of a rock concert opener in1986, and that is exactly what Europe did on the tour. You can imagine how pumped up the home town crowd must have gotten, when the lights went out and the strains of their new anthem filled the arena. From there, they proceeded to play seven of the ten songs from the new album, along with four songs from their previous one, Wings Of Tomorrow.
Along with the title track, three other songs from The Final Countdown made the Billboard Hot 100 list during 1987; "Rock The Night", "Cherokee", and "Carrie". The power-ballad "Carrie" made it all the way to #3, and drained the fuel from many lighters that night. These performances were the obvious high points of the show, but the two-song encore of "Stormwind" and "Dance The Night Away", from the harder edged Wings Of Tomorrow album, really allowed guitarist John Norum to strut his stuff and show that Europe could rock with the best of them. Well, "them" being 80's hair metal bands. The encore was even concluded with a short reprise of "The Final Countdown" - and they wonder why people got sick of the song.
The concert is only a measly one hour in length, which is disappointing considering that two shows were filmed. The overall production quality is quite good for a 20 year old recording. The video was restored into widescreen format from its original source, and I am not sure if any of the original picture was sacrificed from this endeavor. The picture was restored nicely and was surprisingly clear and colorful.
The audio was presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo. The surround track was mixed with plenty of reverb and echo to give it a very live sound, and it worked nicely. The camera work was excellent and captured the live atmosphere of the venue very well. There were some annoying slow motion shots of the audience, and the same clip was dubbed in on numerous occasions, which momentarily killed the live mood you may have been experiencing.
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