Nightwish at the PlayStation Theater

Marco Hietala & Floor Jansen

Based in Kitee, Finland, Tuomas Holopainen in the 1990s had play keyboards in several heavy metal bands, including Nattvindens Gråt, Perkele Börk and Darkwoods My Betrothed. In 1996, sitting with friends around a campfire, he felt roused to form a new band that would play the experimental acoustic music he wrote while in the Finnish Army, similar to the music usually played around campfires, but with keyboards. He invited friend and schoolmate Erno "Emppu" Vuorinen to play acoustic guitars, and classical vocalist Tarja Turunen. The name "Nightwish" was derived from their first song together. Nightwish is the third best-selling band and musical entity in Finland with sales of nearly 900,000 units. The group is also the most successful Finnish band worldwide, selling more than 9 million records. Nightwish presently consists of Holopainen, Vuorinen , vocalist Floor Jansen, bassist/vocalist Marco Hietala, multi-instrumentalist Troy Donockley and drummer Jukka Nevalainen. After eight studio albums, Nightwish's compilation album, Decades, was released on March 9, 2018.

Headlining at the PlayStation Theater tonight, Nightwish combined elements of symphonic metal, progressive metal, power metal and even ambient and European folk music into a bombastic yet melodic explosion. The two-hour performance included many of the band's best-known songs, but also included many songs that were rarely performed live in the past. Although scenarios and movement were projected onto the wide screen behind the band, the statuesque leather-clad Floor Jansen commanded constant attention as she sang delicately to rocking music. Hietala, with his husky voice, countered Jansen's skyward-soaring. Holopainen often provided an ambient or  cinematic interlude on keyboards and synthesizers. Donockley inserted a folksy with a variety of traditional woodwind and stringed instruments. Kai Hahto of Wintersun, who substituted on drums for an ailing Nevalainen on this tour, propelled the drive on the uptempo songs. Concluding the concert, Jansen dedicated "The Greatest Show on Earth" to Professor Stephen Hawking, who died earlier that morning, and then ended with another epic-sounding song, "Ghost Love Score." In concert, Nightwish was an inventive band, with a catalogue that was both visionary and mesmerizing.

Visit Nightwish at www.nightwish.com.

Setlist:

1. End of All Hope
2. Wish I Had an Angel
3. 10th Man Down
4. Come Cover Me
5. Gethsemane
6. Élan
7. Sacrament of Wilderness
8. Dead Boy's Poem
9. Elvenjig ([traditional] cover)
10. Elvenpath
11. I Want My Tears Back
12. The Carpenter
13. The Kinslayer
14. Devil & the Deep Dark Ocean
15. Nemo
16. Slaying the Dreamer
17. The Greatest Show on Earth (Chapter I: Four Point Six; Chapter II: Life; Chapter III: The Toolmaker)
18. Ghost Love Score