March 1999: John Norum for the first time live in Italy! More than an event, an
opportunity not to miss!
Four concerts to celebrate the first
EUROPE guitar player and much more. I went to the last three gigs (Milan - March 12,
Reggio Emilia - March 13, Padova - March 14) and the strong emotions were confirmed every night.
I arrived at Crossroads at 6 p.m. with my brother and a friend of
mine and I met outside other fans from my own city, Turin. Since there were just a few of us, the owner of Crossroads let us in and so we could watch a part of the
soundcheck. First I saw Michelle and I spoke to her, introducing myself,
talking also about the past time with Phantom Blue and asking something more
about her current planes. She is really nice! While I was speaking
with her, John Norum passed by with a member of the band: wow, how tall he
is!! :-)) The great John Norum had just passed in front of my eyes but I didn't
stop him because he was going towards the backstage and then because it would
have been rude towards Michelle. Crossroads quickly fulled with people and
the wait for John was increasing.
Around midnight the stage was wrapped in smoke announcing the coming of John.
You couldn't see anything but hear John's guitar. unfortunately, some problems with the
equipment made John come back to the backstage for some minutes until
everything was settled again and John returned on stage: I was just in front
of him and it was like a dream!! Just try to immagine, his imposing figure
wrapped in the smoke and his guitar playing an intro to a rocking show!! John
revisited his whole solo-career (and not only!) with some great emotional
moments including his tribute to Phil Lynott with the intense "Don't
believe a word". At the end of the show John asked the audience whether
we wanted to listen to some EUROPE stuff and the answer was a loud "Yeah!!".
And the notes of "Heart of stone" spread all over the
Crossroads-club with a great enthusiasm from everybody. Michelle was due to
play that night but unfortunately she wasn't very well. The new "Still
in the game" was supposed to be played too but the problems with the
equipment, which didn't do any justice to the sound, didn't allow that. So
John greeted and thanked everybody and went to the backstage to meet the
fans.
I stayed outside to speak with John Leven showing him also some strange
photos taken in June '98. Around 3 in the morning everybody came back to the
hotel where John Leven delighted those present with some of his jokes! :-))
The next day I went to the station with my brother and my friend: my brother
had to go back to Turin while for me the new destination was Reggio Emilia. A
little time to relax in the hotel (Yes! The life of a fan is hard!:-))
and then with my friend I caught a taxi to
Calamita. It was not easy to find this club since also the taxi-driver had
difficulties to reach it. We were the first to arrive. Later, I met outside some old
and new fans waiting for the coming of the band who immediately did the soundcheck and then went to eat something. I asked
Michelle how she was and she answered she felt much better than the day before telling
me that in all probability she would have played that night...
As soon as the concert began the first
thing to notice was the better sound due to a far better equipment (John himself confirmed that!). The tracklist was the same and, but this time Michelle
came up on stage to play 3 songs "C.Y.R.", "Heart of
stone" and the awaited and expected "Scream of anger". A real
energic show perfect in everything! After the concert I took a picture with
Michelle paying her my compliments for the great solo played and I spent some time talking to Tomas Broman and Leif Sundin. John Norum was immediately surrounded by fans and
went in a room downstairs to meet them. In the meantime upstairs I was
"captured" by John Leven because he wanted to dance :-)).
For the following day a stop at the Fan Convention in Modena was settled:
John was supposed to meet fans and sign autographs but once there we were
said that everything had been cancelled because the guys were tired from the
late hours of the night before. It was a pity because some fans were eager to
meet him...
So we left from Modena to Padova for the last concert of this mini-tour.
Piccadilly 2050 (ex Freeway) is a nice club where we arrived around 7 p.m.
John and the band arrived just a little bit later and immediately
went on stage for the soundcheck. The
John Norum's Group went on stage some minutes after the end of the opening act
for another high concentration of strong emotions. The whole concert
went on perfectly with the active response from the audience. IMHO it
was the best show of the mini-tour together with the one in Reggio Emilia and
later speaking with the drummer I found out that he agreed with me. The
concert ended as always with "Scream of anger" and so the dream was
coming to an end...
When the crowd was dispersed I went into the backstage, I took my tour-poster
and I approached John. He was sitting and drinking.
First I gave him the poster to sign and in the meantime I said:
"Thanks John for the great emotions of these days!!" and he thanked
me for my words. I gave him also a picture of myself. After signing it he
was so kind to blow over the marker-pen ink to make it dry more quickly and
in the meantime he had a look at the picture (it's me in my room surrounded by
some of my stuff about EUROPE) and he asked me pointing to an image of
Joey Tempest with the "A place to call home"-look: "Who is
this guy??!!", I answered: "I don't know! You don't know
him??" and smiling he said: "Never seen before!!??" :-)) At
this point I gave him a letter of mine explaining the particular content and
he said: "Oh... thank you!! I really appreciate it!!" and then I
asked if I could finally take a photo with him and he beckoned me to sit on
his knees. After the photo I imprinted a big kiss on his cheek thanking him
again for everything!!!!!
After John Norum's Group, another band played on stage. John Leven
was already there to listen and later also John Norum, Michelle,
Tomas and Leif joined. It was nice because at a certain point John Leven,
Leif and Tomas went on stage to jam and soon afterwards John Norum joined too
and they played some famous rock n' roll songs. It was really funny!
We all had a great time! Around 4 a.m. the
whole band went back to the hotel and I took a taxi to the station
waiting for the first train back to Turin. Nine hours
later I had to be at my webmaster-course.
I wish to end my tale thanking again all the guys in the band: the "dancing"
John Leven, the nice Tomas and Leif, the dear Michelle for their kindness and
of course many thanks to the great John Norum for his talent, for his
thrilling music and for making me feel so strong and deep emotions!!!!! I
wish you all the best!
Stefania
© Page designed by Stefania Morese
© All photos in this page are owned and copyrighted by Stefania
Thanks to: my brother Fabio for the audio support on the intro page (available only with MSIE);
my friend Alessia for scanning all the photos!
It's not allowed to download and/or use the text and the photos.
