It's surreal to have a member of a band you've known and loved since you were 14 - as I was in 1999 - greet you by your name, or have another band member change from English to Swedish when he started talking to you (in an english-speaking country, no less). It totally blows my mind. Every time, I might add, because it's happened to me on numerous occasions. Not often enough that I grow tired of it, though.
Anyway, Europe started their official forum back in 2003 or 2004. It was a sandbox for us fan "kids", but the band themselves had access to it whenever they wanted, so I guess they noticed us frequent players back then. I think that's why Mic remembered my name upon seeing me the third time we met. He then greeted me with "Tone Irén!" I squealed inside 😄
For a brief period, when there was less action on the forum, Europe ran their own page here on Blogspot. On this page they shared clips from the studio where they were recording Last Look at Eden, and they shared some things from their life on the road, I especially remember a clip that Europe had filmed of some guys in a car following their tour bus in Central America. The fans in the car were singing along to "Love is not the enemy - LOVE IS NOT THE ENEMYYYY". The last party they formally screamed, they were so psyched to be filmed, I think. I played it 10 times in a row, it made me laugh so hard!
Anyway, around the time that Europe toured with the album "Last look at Eden", Joey often filmed or photographed himself on the stage with the audience behind him. The audience - of course - went quite wild when this happened. I managed to save a picture from the now dead blog, where Joey has captured the audience in Skien, on June 5th 2010. It was so cool to have Joey take a picture of me (of course I mean us), when I had taken a picture of him so many times!
I'm front row, right next to the girl with the red sweater.
Nowadays the forum is dead and gone, but Europe has an official Facebook page, and they're continually working to keep it fresh. In the beginning of October, the band posted on their Facebook page urging fans to share their pictures with band members or with memorabilia. I emailed a photo of myself an John Norum. Almost every Friday, Europe would post one of the pictures submitted by fans, but mine never came. So I figured they didn't want to use mine. Then came New Year's! On December 30th, I woke up quite late, and had so many notifications from friends that posted the same link, to Europe's newest submission.
I had no idea I would feel so honoured and happy to have my picture with John on Europe's own Facebook page. It made my whole day! After work that day, I drove to a friend who lives 1 hour away. I parked my car, turned the engine off to wait for her, we were meeting at IKEA. While waiting, I decided to make a comment under Europe's post. I had felt quite famous that day, with all my Europe friends 'tagging' me in comments or messaging me. So you can imagine I felt quite "famous". And so I decided to tell people.
As you can see, Europe decided to make my day even brighter, by commenting on my comment.
Now it's been a little over two months. And you know what? I got my second picture posted on their page! In addition to Fan Feature Friday, Europe decided to do 'Tattoo Tuesday' I absolutely love my tattoo, I've had it for 9 years now. I loved the fact that they decided to include it, 'cause then I got to show the world of fans my devotion :) Mine is at the top right.
Am I getting anywhere with this intermission? Yes. It's a hard market for the bands these days. But doing things like this, to really honour the fans; I think that makes all the difference. Europe has a really devoted fan base (I think they've had 3 or 4 'Tattoo Tuesday's' now... that alone is saying something) ''
