So I’ve seen Nightwish quite a bit. I’ve seen them play small joints like Slim’s and larger ones like the Regency. I’ve seen them at the beginning of tours a la the Gibson Amphitheater. Seen them later that same tour at the Warfield this time with Floor Jansen (one of her first shows with the band!). So yeah, quite a bit. This time around we’re at the San Jose City National Civic which is operated by Nederlander for Nightwish’s Decades tour celebrating over two decades of music.

Something cool with this tour is that everyone attending came home with a copy of Decades in hand. A concert and an album? Great! A lot of the newer fans probably haven’t heard most of the old material and this will get them up to speed. There’s a lot of songs missing (cough “Dark Chest of Wonders” cough “Once”) but they’ve got some good ones you don’t see very often like “End of All Hope” and “10th Man Down.” “10th Man Down” is THE song that, in 2001, got me into Nightwish and by extension power metal/symphonic metal/et al. The moment I heard it I was hooked.

Leading off this special set was “End of All Hope” and “Wish I Had An Angel.” Having snuck a peak at the setlist ahead of time (I like to know what I’m looking at) I noticed “10th Man Down” was third. I was stoked. Now while I had listened to Nightwish since 2001 I had never seen them live until about 2004 which means I never got to see “10th Man Down” live. It had fallen off the sets by then and if you look at tour stats between 2003 and 2018 it basically never surfaced. Floor did flub the first verse but recovered and honestly I’m not sure how many people even noticed. Marco’s vocals on the song are quite different from the originals with Tapio Wilska but… I’ll allow it. Now “10th Man Down” will be forever immortalized online.

What followed this starting three was a set list that spanned every album the band has released. You had songs from Angels Fall First, Oceanborn, Wishmaster, and Century Child going all the way to Imaginaerum and Endless Forms Most Beautiful. I haven’t heard many of them live in ages or if at all. Long term fans surely came out happy. Newer fans got to learn more about the band. I heard more than a few times “oh man I love this song” as someone jumped out of their seat to go into the crush of the crowd.

Now it’s not a “perfect” set but it’s hard to do that when you’ve got so many songs. While this is kind of a “greatest hits” tour it isn’t. There’s a lot of variety. I’m still going to miss songs like “Once,” “Dark Chest of Wonders,” and “Last Ride of the Day” but I’ve seen those many times over the years.

Of course the final song was “Ghost Love Score.” This is one of Nightwish’s signature songs ever since “Once” was released back in 2004 and each of the three vocalists has had to conquer it one way or the other. Tarja, being the original, is hard to unthrone but I think Floor puts up a damned good fight and matches her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V_eoR6r1Tw

Here’s to more decades.

Thanks to Nuclear Blast for this opportunity.

Setlist:

1 End of All Hope
2 Wish I Had an Angel
3 10th Man Down
4 Come Cover Me
5 Gethsemane
6 Elan
7 Sacrament of Wilderness
8 Deep Silent Complete
9 Dead Boy’s Poem
10 Elvenjig
11 Elvenpath
12 I Want My Tears Back
13 The Carpenter
14 The Kinslayer
15 Devil & tThe Deep Dark Ocean
16 Nemo
17 Slaying the Dreamer
18 The Greatest Show on Earth
19 Ghost Love Score