So I’m back from Debrecen where my question about Nightwish’s new front woman finally were answered.

I must begind by saying that when it comes to music and songs I like, I’m pretty much like most people: any deep change within the bands I like causes much fear, anger, grief. When Marco Hietala replaced Sami Vanska as the bass player, I was very upset and the change in sound that came with that made me never look at Nightwish with the same fondness I had ever since I first listened to Tarja’s voice, back in 1998.

Changing a bass player is probably the smallest change a bad can make (if music can be said to have small changes) but in Marco the band found a true leader (a role Tuomas was happy to give away and focus on writing lyrics, while sharing the composing task with Marco), a leader which didn’t take kindly to Tarja’s husband being manager and soon Tuomas and Marco were joined by Jukka and Emppu in casting her out and installing Anette as the new frontwoman.

What’s bad? Anette is not a soprano and while the vast majority of the old songs made for Tarja don’t really require a soprano voice, those that do happen to be ‘the creme de la creme’ of the Nightwish musical array. Moreover, Anette doesn’t seem to have the vocal endurance to go through the lengthy tours of the kind Nightwish has, her voice failing her quite often during this tour.

What’s good? Well, there’s still Nightwish. Tuomas is still making his music, with amazingly beautiful lyrics and (mostly) nice music. The feeling is not the same but then again maybe it’s good that Nightwish isn’t a static band and they’re willing to experiment and evolve. Too much time in one place leads to repetition and falling into patterns. I for one do regret Tarja not being with Nightwish anymore, but I don’t think forcing together people who don’t really like each other anymore can lead to anything good.

About the latest album with Anette, I can’t say too many good things. All I can say it combines the best and the worst of Nightwish, much like the previous one. There are some really amazing songs, such as “The Islander” and “The Last of the Wilds”, some nice like “The poet and the Pendulum” or “Escapist” but also some who don’t really belong anywhere. Ever since someone thought about calling Nightwish ‘gothic’ (though the band never went after any labels), various gothic fans began contesting the band due to the many different views about this musical genre. Definitely, the harder sound has won some fans, but has lost many of the fans of the original Nightwish lineup, the one that managed to gather some impressive performances in music.

Anyway … let’s go back to the concert in Debrece. First impression: the organization. This chapter was definitely one of the best I’ve seen in many concerts. Not sure who handled what but the outcome was great. The lights were perfect, with crisp clear colors, not faltering, not flickering, moving as they should. The sounds was also great, though with some shortcomings near the end of the concert, but I’ll get back to that.

The first band to hit the stage was the pop-rock band Indica from Finland. Having joined Nightwish for the second part of the “Dark Passion Play” tour, was a big hit for Indica whose album was produced by Tuomas himself. The bad did a very good warm-up job, with the dynamic all-female band managing to lift a lot of hands in the air, quite surprising given that the girls’ dynamic mood was quite in contrast with the more somber feeling of Nightwish’s songs. However, the girls were visibly tipsy, from (as the vocalist mentioned) having spent most of the day in a  bar building courage.

The second band was the more well-known Pain. The industrial metal  band from Finland is way so far from my preferences and their dedicated purpose of mixing techno influences in metal is definitely not my liking. Said influences were visible on several song intro’s as some ambiental weird keyboard playback which, ironically, was also the most imaginative part of their singing. Otherwise, the drums were simple (but nice) with some nice bass (good player) but insipid guitar (poot instrument suffered a lot in that guy’s hands, a guy who seemed to know just two notes which he was hitting so hard) and incredibly bad voice (seriously, the guy made me feel that if he had the guts to come on stage with that voice, I would have a chance for an Emmy). Bunt since the playback part of keyboards was the most original thing, I must give Pain two thumbs down … unless they chose the name to express what the audience must feel when the lead singer turns on the mcirophone. Another bad point was that the singer used “fuck” and “shit” every other word, not to mention in songs. Seriously, if I wanted to hear those words, I’d listen to hip-hop. But I don’t.

Then came Nightwish, opening the performance with “Finlandia” a very nice choice, although a bit surprising (not to say shocking). On the downside, I was a bit put-off by Pain and I failed to even begin enjoying it (however it was generally good to have opening gigs, the previous concerts had no opening gigs and the audience managed to warm-up only mid-concert).

I don’t quite remember the song line-up but I do remember a few highlights and downspots. Of highlights, Anette did a good job on “The Siren” (although Tuomas denied her playing it at the beginning of the tour) as well as “The Beauty and the Beast”. Of course, all DPP songs went fairly well, since they were made for her but she managed to make a mess of “Dead Boy’s Poem” and “Ghost Love Score”. On “the Poem”, thing is most of the song’s feeling cam from Tarja’s high comebacks which Anette tried and failed to do (attempts which I believe made her voice fail in the end). On “the Score”, it ws about the same thing but also the pre-recorded chorus failed to render in the speakers and the intro was inaudible, while the ending made a lot of noise in the speakers due to high volume (same recording sounded much better in Bucharest with low-volume speakers) which somewhat spoiled one of my favorite songs. Anette also did poorly on “Nemo” but at that point it made little difference, at least for me.

On the highlights, “Last of the Wilds”, “The Islander” and “The Poet and the Pendulum” were quite magnificent with flute and bagpipes played live by a guest singer. Also Anette did a very good job with “Dark Chest of Wonders” which amounted to an explosion where I found myself headbanging a lot. A bit thing for me was the fact that Marco managed to cut down on his “fuck” (I really hated him for using that word in concerts).

All in all, a pretty good experience, definitely one of the best concerts I’ve seen and a nice ending for the tour. However, my dying wish is that Anette will never play again “Dead Boy’s Poem” and “Ghost Love Score”. Now I’ve seend her live. Conclusion: she can sing, she can do some of the oldies, but some she can’t so … let he stick to those she can, Tuomas! Don’t let her ruin them!