:||: Nature.“ after that the same closing trio as the first event, “Last Ride of the Day,” “Ghost Love Score,” and “The Greatest Show On Earth” ended the second and last chapter of this virtual evening with NIGHTWISH. This was followed by the live debut of the energetic “Pan,” another fun track from their latest album, “ Human. The symphonic metal act then balanced the setlist out with one of their older songs, “Sleeping Sun,” which after all the energy, came as a welcome break. Spring comes back to the fantasy world and a perfect song to underline that mood is the iconic “Ever Dream,” after which the band started playing their hit single “Nemo” once again.
They followed this up with “I Want My Tears Back” again, where Troy took over Hietala‘s parts. During real shows, it’s always a moment that comes with a huge burst of energy, where people start crowd-surfing or just headbanging intensely hopefully, people were able to party hard on this track in their living rooms too. “Harvest” followed again, with Troy on lead vocals, after which the band started playing the iconic opener of “Once,” “Dark Chest of Wonders.” It was surprising to me the band didn’t play that during the first stream, so I’m glad they chose to add this one to the setlist of the second night, because what an insane track it is.
Both versions are equally strong, so it’s just up to the viewer really which one they prefer. After playing “Élan” and “Storytime” again, it was time for the live debut of the studio version of “How’s the Heart.” It was interesting to see that the band opted the day prior to play the acoustic version and a nice little treat for fans to play its real version during the second show. He had to learn more than 20 songs for the occasion, but did so masterfully. The fact that the band had presented a varied setlist on both occasions also made it even more impressive for Jukka Koskinen to join the band under such circumstances. The background for “Alpenglow” didn’t change from the last stream, which is a bit strange considering the lyric video visuals for “Tribal” started playing in the background and the grim atmosphere of that song contrasted a lot with the heartwarming, uplifting spirit of “Alpenglow.” This always has been a fun live track for me because Floor does a great job in singing the very playful lyrics and it’s easily one of her most fun vocal performances. The first real difference came when the seven-piece starts playing “Alpenglow,” off “Endless Forms Most Beautiful,” which they haven’t played since 2016.
The start of the show may have been the same, but it felt like the band was more comfortable playing the (for them) green screen environment and it definitely felt like they were a bit tighter. The first bits of the show were quite similar to the previous show, the band continued with “Planet Hell,” where Floor took over Marko Hietala‘ parts with ease. I’m wondering if “Music” is one of those songs that is impossible to play live? That would somehow sadden me, because it’s such a wonderful opener to the record. The intro of “Music” started playing and somehow I had hoped that instead of playing “Noise,” NIGHTWISH would opt now for the beautiful “Music,” my personal highlight of the record however, the band played “Noise” again. We then are invited into the venue, not a tavern, but inside of the dome of the observatory, large windows, round, with a tree in the middle, something that has a little bit of the same feel that the “Noise” video had. We then arrived at something I can compare best with an observatory, to watch stars by a cliff at the edge of the sea – something that vaguely reminds me of Roger Dean‘s paintings (mostly known as the cover artist for the progressive rock act YES). In my fantasy, the band was enjoying their time on the zeppelin. We were taken on a trip with a zeppelin, which was pulling into its dock. This meant that you can still interact with fans who had seen the show already quite a few times and that is something that I have missed during other live events, where you can only chat when the stream is ongoing.ĭuring the first stream, I had missed the intro due to technical issues, so it was fun to see how the crew had created this beautiful fantasy world. What has been fun to see, is that the chat didn’t only stay open for during the shows, but for the entire time you can watch the shows. While the stream was a bit too late for me to watch live, I started watching right when I woke up.