I have said it a dozen times before – well, maybe not here at the Metal Express Radio – so I repeat it; 013 in Tilburg, Holland is indeed the best venue in Europe to see a band. It’s true what they say down there, that if you have bad sound in this place – you should promptly get rid of your sound engineer. Same goes for light engineer, I would say. The place is created for the ultimate concert experience, and there are no reasons to expect anything less when you walk in.
Nightwish, by far the hard rock success of the year, may hold on to their engineers. After the first song, “Bless The Child” (which really isn’t a good set opener anyway), the sound was outstanding throughout the whole night. So was the light show, so was the band, and indeed – so was the sold out crowd of 2500 Dutch fanatics. By far the best Nightwish show I have ever seen, I still scratch my head to the rumors that the band will take a few years off after this short tour. But hey, it’s not my decision.
Playing about half the new album and the most predictable (not meant as a negatively loaded expression) stuff from their past, the show was amazingly close to perfection, a word that is the surname for 013. There’s no doubt that the band uses lots of playback for backup singing and orchestration, but most bands around these days do, right? I liked Rhapsody very much when I saw them headline in April, so it’s a miscarriage of justice to be too hard on the Finns for a little use of Minidisc. Tarja sang like she looked, no need to go deeper into that, and little Emppu impressed me quite a bit, both with his sound and his playing. Halfway through the set Tarja needed a break, and two members from Holland’s own After Forever (support act) were brought up to pay tribute to the grand old man Ozzy Osbourne. If I’m not wrong, I think their drummer played guitar and did the first part of the “Crazy Train” solo pretty decently, while the guitar player sang the song. I don’t know if they do this every night – I bet so – but it was a fun way to break the set into two, instead of meaningless drum solos etc. Tarja came back, the show went on with “Slaying The Dreamer”, and after 75 minutes the main set ended with another cover; “Over The Hills (And Far Away)” from Gary Moore.
Two encores later, the incredible “Sleeping Sun” and “Wishmaster” – another fantastic gig with an even more fantastic crowd at 013 went into history. I wouldn’t have made big complaints if “Ocean Song” and “Beauty Of The Beast” were included, maybe next time – in a few years???
Like mentioned, After Forever warmed up the audience with a close to 50 minutes show, and were given a warm welcome. Floor Jansen moved from one side of the stage to the other by one step only, actually I thought for a second that her hips were a part of the drum set. (I loooove tall girls…) Seriously, the set was quite impressive, though I am not familiar with the band’s music, and After Forever had a great stage presence (yes, that means the whole band.) I think the Iron Maiden cover was a bit redundant (“The Evil That Men Do”), but I have heard far worse Iron Maiden covers. Check the guys (and girl) out if you’re lucky enough to get a chance.
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