Final countdown to Sheffield show

Famous for their anthemic The Final Countdown, the band have had something of a renaissance in the last ten years with four outstanding albums, the latest of which, 2012’s Bag of Bone, was declared the 16th best rock album of 2012 by Classic Rock magazine.

With other great songs in their repertoire, such as; Superstitious, Carrie, Let the Good Times Rock and Prisoners in Paradise I wondered if it rankled as we in the UK only seem to remember the band for The Final Countdown.

“Not really,” says founder member and singer Joey Tempest from his London home which he shares with his English wife and six-year-old son.

"”The rock community doesn’t overlook our other work, in fact we have four songs on Planet Rock’s playlist.”

The Swede continues: “We are happy to have established ourselves again after the break we had, and we are very pleased to be getting respect.”

Whilst Joey has based himself in London, the rest of the band live in and around Stockholm where the band rehearse and record.

Joey has worked with the other bands on the tour bill in the past, as he explains: “FM supported us on a UK four in the early nineties, and we were on the same iTunes Festival bill in 2010.

“They are both great sounding bands so this should be a good package.”

Anything specific for the show? “It’ll be focused mainly on the last two albums, Last Look at Eden and Bag of Bones, and we'll put in a couple of tracks from our second album, Wings of Tomorrow, because it's 30 years since that album, maybe Out of the World and of course The Final Countdown.”

In the 30-plus years the band has been going, there have been many highlights for Joey. “There was our appearance on Top of the Pops in 1987. I met Bon Jovi that day. Also, touring with Def Leppard in ‘88 when their Sugar Me was riding high.

“And of course recently we played with Whitesnake and Def Leppard in Spain; it was amazing and I got to sing with David Coverdale.”

And there’s one highlight that we can hare with Europe, and that’s their 30th Anniversary Show in front of 30000 people at last year’s Sweden Rock Festival.

“We played two and a half hours and had Michael Schenker and Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham on stage with us.”

This concert has recently been released as a 2CD, DVD or Blu-Ray set and was described as “a greatest hits show at its bombastic best”.

Joey is very enthusiastic about the tour with Foreigner and FM, and says: “We are all very much looking forward to the shows, for me not least because I live in the UK. Recently we’ve been doing the smaller Academy tours, but this is a step up with bigger stages.”

As for the future, the band will continue to produce high-quality music. “We’ve started work on our tenth studio album and we’ve just signed with a US Agency, so we hope to do more work in America.

"Also, it would be nice to do a documentary film, as it would tell the story of some lads from the Stockholm suburbs making it big. We have been saying ‘no’ in the past because the journey’s not over yet.”

Europe, along with FM; will be special guests of Foreigner on their UK tour which comes to the City Hall, Sheffield on Tuesday April 8.

Tickets are available from the box office on 0114 278 9789 and all the usual agencies.