Last night, after a 3 hour train journey, an hour looking for the venue, and another hour waiting in a mile-long que of London's dimmest and darkest music lovers, we were finally allowed inside the Astoria. The room was heavy with sweat and excitement as we waited, muscles tight in readiness, for the first band of the night to take the stage.
Brainstorm, an explosive power metal 5-piece from deepest Scandanavia, launched onstage and within 20 seconds owned every soul in the cavernous performance hall. Songs pounded out as we crept closer to the front of the stage, dodging around the legions of headbangers we were soon to join.
We were there for one thing, Nightwish.
The lights dim, the backing track rolls, and the crowd roars louder than any PA as Jukka's vest and headscarf move through the fog onstage. Other members of the band emerge, Marco smoking a cigarette, Emppu clutching his guitar like it's a part of him and soon, it will be. On the left of the stage, furthest from where we stand and scream our appreciation, a cowboy hat seems to be floating out of the mist. It is Tuomas, everything is ready.
"Once.....I had a dream....."
It begins. Emppu plays, the album has barely been out a month but everyone knows the words, they're in our hearts already. The crowd looks more like a tide than a group of disparate metal-lovers. For this one moment, we are all one being. When it comes to the chorus, we can barely seperate Tarja's voice from our own.
The frenzied chords of 'Planet Hell' kick in and staying still is impossible, although by this point the concept of possibility is very distant indeed. Is it possible for 5 musicians to be making such a perfect sound in front of you? Whatever you believed before, Nightwish are proving with every beat, every melody, that they can.
The classics also get the airing they deserve, 'She is my Sin' has never sounded more grandoise than it has tonight, and the band know it. 'Sleeping Sun' and the beautiful 'Everdream' have both been included tonight, both greeted with mass hysteria from the swarm of sweaty bodies at Tarja's feet. But the roars and screams seem like mere grunts of approval compared to the reaction as she begins to sing, accompanied by nothing more than a few notes from Tuomas, the first verse of 'Phantom of the Opera'.
At one point, the svelte singer leaves the stage, handing power over to a grinning Marco, elated at his own song 'Higher Than Hope' being a gem in the evenings setlist. Silence falls, after last year's cover of 'Crazy Train', it's common knowledge that this band can do whatever they like, and make it work. From the grizzled bassists smoke-filled banter we catch two distinct words. The first is 'Dave', the second is 'Mustaine'. Nothing more needs to be said, but he says it anyway.
"Symphony of Destruction!"
Of course, once the fist-pumping, moshpitting anthem has rung it's last chord, it's time for Tarja to return. But how? Nobody seems to know. That is, until we hear the backing tape. Anyone lucky enough to catch the Century Child tour will know the power that choral voice can have.....
'Bless the Child' plays in it's full, uninterrupted glory. By this point, both the crowd and myself are beyond the Astoria, we've been taken somewhere fresh and new. A bright new world of sound, where nothing exists except us and them. It feels like the ultimate high.
Then it's over, a handful more songs and the set is done, the musicians who had been our Gods for the past hour retreated back into the mist. We begin to chant, 'WE WANT MORE! WE WANT MORE!'
We get it. And, like before, the crowd becomes a single, all-powerful entity as we sing along to 'Dead Boy's Poem'. Lighters and arms are waved, people sway, it's the most natural thing in the world. Then everything shifts, a primal energy seems to fill everyone as the magnificent opening riff to 'Slaying the Dreamer' sends every soul in the room utterly insane. Lastly, grins splitting bright faces in half, the band announce their last song for the evening.
"It's off the new one......it's called Wish I Had An Angel!"
And that, more or less, was how it ended. Pictures will be forthcoming soon.
