Swedish rock band Europe played Gothenburg Film Studios on 23 October 2026, and Dagens Nyheter's reviewer Johanna Paulsson argues the group carries the hair-metal sound of the 1980s with dignity rather than treating it as a novelty. Her review, published the following day, describes a band that now operates as a close-knit unit and wants to offer audiences more than pure nostalgia. The same run of dates brings the group to Stockholm on 24 October, according to the concert listings site HurBra.se.
Paulsson's central reservation is that the set gives short shrift to newer songs, leaning on familiar material instead. She frames this as a shame, given that the band appears genuinely invested in playing as a working group rather than a touring nostalgia act.
Why it matters
Europe's story is unusual in Swedish popular music. The group's international breakthrough is now four decades old, and Dagens PS marked that anniversary with a piece describing the band as a Swedish global success that nobody had wanted — a reminder that the career began against expectations rather than with industry backing.
That distance from the original breakthrough is exactly what makes the live question interesting. A band with a four-decade-old hit catalogue can either settle into a heritage circuit or keep pushing current work into the setlist. According to Dagens Nyheter, Europe is doing the first part well and the second part only partly.
A band that has stayed a band
The DN review's emphasis is on cohesion. Paulsson writes that the members come across as a tight team with an interest in delivering something beyond nostalgia. That is a specific claim about performance rather than about songwriting: the group is being judged on how it plays together on stage, not on how its back catalogue compares with its newer output.
The distinction matters because the criticism in the review is not about competence. Paulsson does not suggest the band is coasting through its old songs. Her complaint is about proportion — that the newer material, which would demonstrate where the group stands now, gets too little room in the show.
Gothenburg, then Stockholm
The Gothenburg date at Filmstudion was the first of two Swedish shows in the current run. HurBra.se lists the Stockholm concert for 24 October, and the site's Gothenburg listing covers times, support acts and tickets for the 23 October show. Those listings are practical information rather than critical assessment, but they confirm the two-city Swedish leg reported alongside the DN review.
For readers trying to place the band's current standing, the coverage around this run is split between retrospective and review. Dagens PS looked back at the four decades since the breakthrough, while DN assessed what the group does on stage now. Both point at the same tension: a band defined by a very old record and a very long career, still performing under its own name with its original identity intact.
What to watch
The open question is whether the setlist shifts as the tour continues, and whether the newer songs Paulsson found underused get more space in Stockholm. Anyone attending the 24 October show can judge for themselves; the rest of us will have to wait for the next review.
