~ThisOneisHaku

So, as you may or may not have known, I got to see Nightwish last night. First, I'd just like to say: SHIT YEAH. My brother decided not to go because he had a headache and of course regretted it later, and so I ended up with an extra ticket that ended up going to Paul/Vincent, who was actually the person from whom I first heard of the band, so that worked out nicely. The other extra ticket ended up getting wrinkled from being stuck in my corset for a few hours. Warm, crowded room + headbanging + excitement = sweat and a sealed envelope. Lol. The wait outside was slightly not concrete via some guy who reminded me of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (ridiculously tall and skinny, dark hair, wore a crazy trenchcoat-type thing), although he did give me what would be the first of many free piggyback rides that night. They gave everyone a brief pat-down to check for cameras and stuff, but earlier at school I had made a joke that nobody would object to it if it was the band members giving the pat downs, because then you would get (slightly odd) bragging rights. "I GOT GROPED BY NIGHTWISH!" XD

Anyway, the opening band was Paradise Lost. They were pretty good, but there's only so much you can get excited over a band you've never heard before. There was some song they played, somewhere between the third and fifth songs, that I liked a lot. Another highlight of their performance was when some guy in the crowd yelled, "PLAY GAUNTLET!" and the lead singer was like, "...no." It amused me. He was smiling a little, so he he didn't come off entirely like an asshole. When they were done, there was a pretty long break. One of the sound guys was wearing a black t-shirt with the word 'EXPERT' printed on the back of it in red, and some of the crowd members took to chanting that whenever he came out to do something. He probably thought they were jackasses, but it was kinda funny.

After about three light changes, Nightwish finally came on stage. I managed to get just a few feet away from the stage, which was exciting. The room got dead quiet, and they were playing some song that sounded like it was the Pirates of the Carribean soundtrack. Also, a large Jack Sparrow action figure was attached to one of the keyboards. When Jukka (the drummer) came out, the crowd went nuts. Next came Tuomas, their keyboardist/songwriter, and after that I didn't catch the order because people were jumping around too much. But the next thing I knew, Marco, Emppu, and Annette were on stage opening with Bye Bye Beautiful. For the next couple of songs, it was hard to see anything because the crowd was jumping around too much, and I am a borderline midget. Speaking of which, I think Emppu is about 5'4". Haha. After that, they played Amaranth, and then surprised me by playing Dark Chest of Wonders off of the album Once. I kinda figured they'd end up doing some songs from previous records despite the fact that they'd originally been sung by Tarja, but I didn't expect as many as they did. Kinda of a nice surprise. I give thanks to Aki for giving me a boost so I could see during that one. They followed up with The Islander, which is one of my favorite songs off Dark Passion Play (Last of the Wilds is up there too, but they didn't play that one), and Paul picked me up so I could actually see. Marco was amazing. Most people might expect him to be all angry and scary, but he's actually really friendly. After I got my feet back on the ground, they played Ever Dreams, which was fun to hear since it's off one of their earlier records, and it's a damn good song beside. By that point, a pretty good portion of the crowd was singing/screaming along with the band. It was kinda hard to hear, but Marco sang quite a few parts that he didn't in the albums.Next they played Whoever Brings the Night, The Poet and the Pendulum (almost 14 minutes long on the album, and Paul was nice enough to give me a boost through the whole thing ), Cadence of Her Last Breath, Higher Than Hope, and Sahara in roughly that order. Higher Than Hope was another song from when Tarja was still with the band, and while it's not one of my top favorites, they did a spectacular job with it. There might have been a couple more songs in there that I missed, but not too long after that they announced that they were getting to the point where there were only a couple songs left, and told us that if we kept up the level of energy, there might be a little extra in store. I think that's about when people started moshing, which I somehow managed not to notice until after I'd gotten shoved forward about three times. Although some people were chanting for Planet Hell, they played Nemo for their 'last' song, which got a huge reaction from the crowd. Apparently we were crazy enough, because after they disappeared from the stage for a few minutes, they came back with 7 Days to the Wolves. I had a feeling they'd include that one in the setlist, and they followed with Wishmaster (which could barely be heard because of all the people shouting along) and I Wish I Had an Angel for the final song.

The way they announced things and spoke to the crowd inbetween songs was really cool. Annete's really cute in person, and we came to the conclusion that Tuomas is something of a narcissist. He is ridiculously pretty, though. I did a crappy impression of him playing the keyboard when we met at IHOP later. According to Paul (I'm still used to calling him that, even though he's apparently legally changing his name to Vincent), Tuomas was screaming or mouthing something that looked like "I have a big dick" off and on during the performance, which might explain that crazy grin he had. Maybe he was laughing because he thought no one noticed. Also, while drummers are usually just doing their thing and don't generally get a lot of attention, they're pretty damn good performers. I noticed this with Shinya (Dir en Grey's percussionist) at Family Values a couple years back, and it held true with Jukka. He is a badass. Emppu was pretty awesome as well. A couple times he came to the front of the stage to touch people's hands, but (according to Aki; I didn't get to stick around but she got my ticket signed for me^^) after the concert I guess he didn't feel like signing things because he just put on a hoodie and made a run for the van. Ten bucks says he was avoiding short jokes. Anyway, before I left, I bought a couple t-shirts, one for me and a 7 Days to the Wolves one for my brother. I probably should've asked him what size to get, because medium is apparently a bit small. I guess I can always steal it and wear it myself, but I feel kinda bad since he didn't go and wanted a souvenir... Still, fucking awesome show; wouldn't have missed it for anything. My throat and neck still hurt

And interestingly enough, even though I went to bed around 2:30 last night and have inservice today, I still woke up at the time I normally set my alarm for on school days. Behold the wonders of internal clocks. And 15 different colors of sharpie.