Flagging Down the Double E's

Flagging Down the Double E's

Why Europe 2000 Might NOT Be the Greatest Never Ending Tour Leg

2000-09-27, Ahoy, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Ray Padgett
Sep 27, 2025
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I started this series wondering if Europe 2000 was the greatest leg of the Never Ending Tour. As you can imagine, that generated a lot of response. No one that I saw talked smack about it—Europe 2000 seems universally agreed upon as pretty damn great—but many suggested other contenders for the title. Spring 1995 came up a lot. So did Summer/Fall 2002. A few Freddy Koella-heads mentioned various points in 2003. I even saw a mention of the very first leg of all, Summer 1988, which set the template for the whole thing (and might be a more popular choice if so many of the tapes didn’t sound terrible).

So today I’m going to play devil’s advocate and try to make the case that Europe 2000 is not the greatest Never Ending Tour leg ever. Not a case I entirely believe but, after having listened to over half the tour now, a case I think I know how to make.

The case against Europe Fall 2000 being the best ever, I believe, comes down to this:

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