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(Geoff Dugmore) "They were all fab in their own way"
(Click the photos to see them full size)
1981 John Otway 'Band Behind The Curtain Tour'
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(John Otway) "I sang in front of a
screen and they were featured in silhouette behind me - This was
the only way I could get them on the same stage"
(Steve Hogarth) "We were behind a white screen and Otway was in front. We were backlit so the audience could only see our silhouettes. Colin used to wear a tea-towel on his head under a top-hat so they all thought it was Willy Barrett. I guess it was my first real tour. We worked hard but it was a blast. All our friends came to see us. They were mostly Scots. They're all millionaires now" |
(Colin Woore) "Nearing the end of the set, I would drape a towel over my head and then put on a top hat - Wild Willy Barrett magically appearing. We were pretty knackered after a few nights though as we were also the support act and were supplying and moving the PA and all the gear."
(Geoff Dugmore) "I remember that quite well. We rented him our PA system and in return we got to open up for him. So, we opened up for him as the Euros but we had to play for him as well as this 'band behind the curtain. In some respects it was a lot of fun, although when I look back on it I think we were probably being used. I think it was youthful naivety and the desire to succeed ! "
22/05/81 City of London Polytechnic supporting 'Chelsea'
(Review : Melody Maker, 10th October 1981) "Amazing what a few months can do. An average four-piece club outfit, The Europeans looked straight and sounded straight. That was April. Now they've gone overboard on image and their songs have gone into overdrive. Gone is the casual 'wear-what-you-like' look of old. In are tight white skin piercing trousers, colourful tops, black leggings and bare feet. Still experimental, the new image requires refinement but it's a great improvement. The material's the killer though. Sharper than ever, songs like 'Joining Dots' & 'Tokyo' are blasting, pumping, aggressive slices of punchy pop; a nod to the tougher edge of the Sinceros, while 'Going to Work' (an anthem for the unhappily employed) convinces with its abrasive guitar riff curling through the verse and the power of the song's sentiments. And they've got a lot more up their sleeves as well; definitely a band to keep your eye on.- Paul Strange."
1983 Summer UK Tour
(Geoff Dugmore) "Every year A&M had an annual conference in London, and we went to it one time and got so drunk it was unbelievable! I remember waking up the next morning, on my own, in the suite that had been hired by the president of A&M. I don't know how! We had a gig that night at 'The Fridge' in Brixton and we were so hideously hung over it was horrendous, but the gig was good. We did a residency there."
(Ferg Harper) "The record company were a little over generous in the 'entertainment' that they were giving us prior to the show. Without saying too much, there were several lagers quaffed, and certain other substances involved, so by the time we hit the stage, we were not in the best condition. It was probably the most pivotal gig of our career, in as much as MTV producers and all the media were there to watch it, and we basically came out and played the whole set at 78rpm instead of 45rpm ! Apparently the front of house sound wasn't the best either, 'cos it was a very echoey venue. I remember at the time, our guitarist Colin was going out with Toni Childs, the American singer, and she was a great champion of our cause. She'd lived with us in London, and come to our gigs. And I just remember when we came off stage she said "What the f*ck happened?" And we were like, 'Oh, was it not good ?' And that was probably the critical point of us not getting the full backing in America that we probably should have."
(Steve Hogarth) "The song 'Better Dreams' (from the 'Ice Cream Genius' album) is about Los Angeles for the first time...how it struck me. I remember getting into an elevator lift and when the doors closed I realised it was just me and Debbie Harry. Then it stopped, she got out and Little Richard stepped in!"
(Ferg Harper) "I think that was the only gig on the American tour where we really excelled. We got used to being in America. The sound was good, we had a good stage to play, good lighting. I was one of those gigs that just fired off. There were quite a few people there. Billy Idol's guitarist was there and he thought we were fantastic. And 'Flock of Seagulls' were there. They had seen us in Los Angeles, and liked us enough to follow us to New York and watch this gig. And everybody when we came off said 'oh, that was absolutely blinding.' It was shame we hadn't done that gig in the Palace in L.A, but, hey, you can't control these things !"
(Geoff Dugmore) "By the time we got to 'The Ritz' we realised what it was that we were supposed to be doing. We weren't there to have party. It wasn't a holiday. We were actually there to work. A lot of that was down to our manager who guided us unbelievably badly through that whole thing."
(Ferg Harper) "I remember we met Robert Plant at that gig in Boston. He was there for some bizarre reason. I don't know why!"
(Colin Woore) "We were on tour in the US
following a lot of airplay on the East and West coasts of the Animal Song and
MTV exposure of the video (raw meat edited out by censors of some kind).
The gig in Boston was in a large club that could put on two separate shows on
their back-to-back stage on the same night. The backstage area, as we
found out later, was communal. Robert Plant was in Boston and came down to see
the show with his girlfriend. We'd never met him before but new that he
was in an old band called "Led" something. Sister Sledge were
performing on the other side of the stage behind us that night, but we hadn't
had any contact with them. After our show, he came backstage to say hello.
We were all really hungry and had barely eaten anything all day, so we all got
stuck in to the excellent rider food which we thought had been supplied by the
club for us. Just as we were polishing it all off, Sister Sledge appeared
from their last encore, which was " WE ARE FAMILY " or was it
"WE ARE FAMISHED" only to witness the last bits of their food being
devoured. That really went down like a Led......something."
(Review : Sounds, 22nd October 1983) "...The Europeans are a whole hospital ward of accidents in a musical sense. Virtually each song has a rousing, memorable chorus (even if they all sound a little similar), but the verses tend to ramble incoherently and get lost in the cross-rhythm. Still, they have several saving graces: their infectious enthusiasm, the screeching attack of guitarist Colin and the edgy, pulsating emotion of 'Going to Work', their one truly great song. At the moment, the Europeans are too anxious, too wired for frantic response to get near the heart and soul of an audience... - Johnny Waller"
(Geoff Dugmore) "That was a very weird gig. I actually thought that it was a fantastic show, and I remember coming off stage and feeling very elated. Then we listened to the 'Cocteau Twins' with Liz Fraser singing in floods of tears, and it really took the wind out of my enthusiasm that night. I'd never seen anybody perform with such emotional conviction, bearing their soul so openly on a stage. It had a striking effect for me personally. "
(Review : NME, 5th November 1983) "The recipe from which Europeans were concocted is a common one : add a dollop of the Associates to a dash of Bryan Ferry, and stir with a far too generous helping of the not so Thin Tanned Duke. It doesn't take an Egon Ronay to see that this mixture doesn't gel. In the studio, the drums / bass / guitar / synth line-up make a somewhat lifeless stab at the white Euro-rhythmic disco beat, as championed by Simple Minds. On stage, The Europeans over compensate for their lack of drive on record resulting in all semblance of melody being lost somewhere between the monotonous bangs and crashes. The Europeans try too hard to appeal to all, and end up pleasing no-one. - Ziyad Georgis."
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(Ferg Harper) "That was one of the better ones, apart from Steve almost ending someone's life by throwing that fire extinguisher! It knocked the electronic box off the wall and nearly killed one of the stage hands ! And did we care ?" |
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1983 'Live' Album
The show was filmed for the BBC's 'Sight & Sound' music show, and broadcast live (simultaneously) on BBC2 and Radio One. The set was : (warm-up / sound tests) American People / Going to Work; (broadcast set) Typical / Spirit Of Youth / American People Innocence / Falling / Joining Dots / A.E.I.O.U. / Animal Song; (non-broadcast songs) Tunnel Vision / Writing for Survival
(Ferg Harper) 'The broadcast faded off as I sang an extraordinary flat note ! Quite a disappointing end to the evening. I thought 'Shit, you did have to sing that flat bit right at the end !'"
(Geoff Dugmore) "We kept getting these great 'In Concert' TV and Radio things and I could never quite understand why, because we didn't seem to sell any records. That was the strange thing about the Euros - we could sell out venues but we could never translate it into album sales. In retrospect, I think we were a 'musicians' musicians' type band as opposed to a 'pop' band. "
The band announced in the national music press that they were looking for local supports for their 1984 UK Tour. They received 174 tapes, and chose the lucky bands listed below.
(NME? Jan 1984): "The response confirmed the Europeans' belief that agents, social secretaries and bands themselves could do more to provide opportunities for local acts during a tour rather then simply selling off the support slot to groups with major label deals. A Europeans spokesperson said last week 'It should not be regarded as a privilege for bands to play support slots on decent stages in their home towns, but rather as a right.'"
1984 European & UK Tour
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Photo by Inge Kuijt
(Ferg Harper) "I think that was the one where I lost my teeth ! I seem to remember a problem with one of the monitors. I decided to strip a bit of wire with my teeth, and I pulled my two front teeth out ! So what I had to do for the gig was to get a big bit of chewing gum, stick it in and 'shing like thish.' Trying to keep this chewing gum in my mouth so I could pronunciate !"
(Geoff Dugmore) "The concerts in Paris in April '84 were at a venue called Le Bain Douche. I remember it well. It was my birthday and we had a fantastic party after the show."
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The Set : Typical / Spirit Of Youth / American People / Burning Inside You / Love Has Let Me Down / Writing For Survival / Innocence / Listen / Don't Give Your Heart / Falling I / Joining Dots / A.E.I.O.U. / Animal Song / Tunnel Vision / Falling II / Going To Work |
06/06/84 The Venue, London
(Ferg Harper) "I had lost my voice and managed to restore it by using every throat sweet and mixture known to man. Amongst the cures I had been gargling with an aspirin solution and drinking neat whiskey during and after the gig. As a result of that I somehow managed to burn right through part of my stomach causing massive internal bleeding in the following days. I was rushed to hospital with only one-fourth of my body blood remaining and was transfused with about eleven pints of blood as the hole gradually sealed itself several days later."
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Photos by Inge Kuijt |
(Ferg Harper) "By that stage, I was playing a little keyboards in between to try and recreate the sound of Recurring Dreams on stage. We had to do a lot of extra stuff to try and make [the show] sound like the album, so I was playing a bit of synthesizer. It actually worked really well, and we all sang harmonies."
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(Ferg Harper) "The place was packed. I remember the whole crowd jumping up and down, really lapping it up. Everybody was singing the songs, and it was just one of those magic evenings where everything clicked so well. The lights were great, the sound was great, we were performing right on the pinnacle, we had everything absolutely down tacked. It was a totally professional, fabulous show. And we knew it. We came off feeling absolutely electrified by it. There was an incredible buzz when it all went right like that." (Photo by Ullis Wesley) |
1984 'Recurring Dreams' European Tour
(Geoff Dugmore) "The unity left us at 'The Atlantis' in Basle, in 1984. I have a very strong recollection of sitting in a bar and suddenly being very aware that two 'camps' had evolved. There wasn't the same 'four people against the rest of the world' thing that we had before. It had all changed."
(Steve Hogarth) "We did a club gig in Munich where we opened for the Psychedelic Furs... Richard Butler was walking through our dressing room on the way to the stage, and he was floating! It was like he was walking on tip-toes, grinning like a cheshire cat. He seemed like a magical person, it was like he was all full of something... it radiated from him... some kind of peculiar, creative, insane love. I must have been in the room with him for about two-and-a-half minutes and that was enough. I thought, I'm gonna find out all about what this guy does, because he's just got something... one of those things you can't quite put your finger on, but it's very spiritual."
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| (Photos from German Newspaper 11/84) |
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Photos by Inge Kuijt |
(Steve Hogarth) "I did the occasional gig at The Metropole with the euros, and we had some wild times. It just seemed like everybody was so conscious of the fact that they were entirely encircled by this oppression and bleakness, that they were partying to spite it. There was this sense of nobody knowing when it was gonna end, and it was like 'it could be tonight, so let's get out and have a good time. So there was that edge, and that determination to be outrageous, and to do everything that wasn't allowed, just to cross the wall."
(Ferg Harper) "There's a film of us doing 'You Don't Want Me (In Your Life)' at the Metropole in Berlin. Geoff's got a copy of that. There was an interview as well, and we were absolutely shot. We really looked like we'd been on tour for like a month, drinking heavily. We all looked slightly shocked, because we were sleeping in the van."
1984/5 UK Dates
(Ferg Harper) "I remember the Marquee dates as always clicking together. I remember the guy who managed the Marquee at the time, said that we were the best band he'd seen since The Police had played there."
(Geoff Dugmore) "By that time we were so anxious, and aware of the fact that it was all slipping away from us. We were more pre-occupied with that than we were with doing the shows. The whole thing was drifting apart. We were clutching at straws rather than being a unit anymore."
(Melody Maker, Dec 1984): "Am much under-rated A&M pop act, Europeans have recently dropped their wacky image and have drastically changed their material. Straight looking and highly melodic in their latest LP Recurring Dreams (totally ignored by the music press and radio deejays) is a strong statement of poignant, purposeful pop. Highly recommended."
(Ferg Harper) "The Shaw Theatre was the last one. I don't quite know why, It was a one off date near the end, but it was very good. We didn't know that it was our last gig."
(Geoff Dugmore) "I don't really recollect too much about it. I remember finishing playing and thinking 'Is the last time we are ever going to do this ?'... which it was!"
(Steve Hogarth) "I had been eating certain substances which are normally smoked in cigarettes. I wouldn't advise you to do this. I ended up completely forgetting everything - my immediate past as well as my distant past and I had to go on stage at Edinburgh Playhouse (sold out) with no idea of how any of the songs went, or any of the words. Two minutes before stage time I was being heartily sick into the car park at the rear of the theatre. I was still outside on my hands and knees when I heard the band strike up. Walking to centre stage with the band already playing and no idea what I would do when I got to the mic. It's one of the outstanding nightmares of my life."
(Judith Mitchell, fan) "I remember How We Live more than most support acts. Hogarth wore a long black duster-type coat and sat a piano, with, I think a keyboard on top. I do remember him sitting and even standing on top of the piano at one stage! 'All the time in the world' was getting a bit of airplay on Gary Davies' Radio One lunchtime show, and when I heard the 'How We Live' tape, I recalled the catchy chorus straight away. This had me very perplexed as I knew I'd seen them somewhere, and a trawl through my tickets of past gigs had me wondering. I finally managed to figure out it was Chris De Burgh I'd seen with 'How We Live' - much to Hogarth's embarrassment! In 1991, I was backstage at the 'Holidays in Eden' show in Bradford, and asked Hogarth to sign a few tickets. I'd put the Chris De Burgh one in between, and when it turned up he went as white as his shirt!"
(Colin Woore) "The Berlin gig took place in a stadium that was a natural amphitheatre in the middle of some woods where Hitler made a lot of his speeches. We had to enter the stage through Hitler's secret tunnel, which you entered through a hole in the ground in the woods behind the stage area, through a concrete bunker, bringing you onto the stage through a pair of huge metal doors at the back of the stage. Apparently he used this for theatrical effect - the big doors would open and out he would come. It was eerie."
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