Wish Granted

Tuesday night, 5/27/2008, was the Nightwish concert at the Granada Theatre in Lawrence Kansas. Jeep and I left in the afternoon and met my friend Jee and her cousin T in Lawrence, then we all went to the show together. As I type this Wednesday afternoon, my ears are still ringing a little bit.

One of the things I love about Progressive Rock is that it attracts such a wide variety of people. At a Prog show you will see young hard-partying metal-head drunks standing next to clean cut middle-aged businessmen. The majority of the people at this show seemed to fall into the twenty-something emo-goth-metal categories, but there were plenty of normal looking folks too, including a couple that must have been at least 50 standing behind us. (I asked that lady to take our picture because I figured she was least likely to rob us.)

As we were standing in line I had to smile when I saw a middle-aged man walking alone up the sidewalk. He was mostly bald with his remaining hair a bit long and disheveled, his scrawny pasty white legs were obviously not familiar with sunlight, and he was fumbling to put batteries in his camera as he awkwardly made his way toward the end of the line. But all nerdiness aside, he was going to a metal concert wearing a black Epica t-shirt. I started to chuckle at the sight until I realized I was looking at an image of myself in 15 years.

I had a few goals for the night. 1) Find a good spot to stand - the venue was standing only, general admission. 2) Rock out like crazy. 3) Make out with the lead singer Anette Olzon. 4) Touch Marco's beard; the bass player Marco Hietala has a long beard that looks very soft. Touching Marco's beard is on my life's 'bucket list'. I wonder what kind of shampoo he uses. Probably some exotic stuff only available in Finland. 5) Have an awesome time.

One memorable moment that was funny at the time, but gets more sad every time I think of it: As we continued to wait outside a man walked up who had clearly led a hard life of substance abuse that has apparently caused a good deal of permanent damage. He stopped next to me, gawked at the line of people stretching down the block, and asked what the line was for. After a silent pause, it seemed nobody wanted to respond to him. Never too afraid to talk to crazies, I told him we were there to see a concert. He asked what band and I said Nightwish. As expected, he had never heard of them. He asked what type of music, and a person behind me replied "Metal." The man then asked if they were any good, so I grinned at him and simply said "Excellent." The man then started to rant, "I came all the way here from Massachusetts, and it took me THREE MONTHS! (At this point he started yelling in the typical crazy burn-out fashion.) AND IF I'M HERE TO DISCOVER THAT THIS IS A GREAT BAND, THEN THAT MUST BE WHY I'M HERE! …" Halfway through his rant the line moved forward and he was no longer near us, so I don't know what happened after that. (Talking to burn-outs is always interesting. Remind me to tell you about the time I almost bought a used bike from an older crack-head couple.)

Random Comments:
- "I hear, but how will I see?" (Nightwish: The Siren) Once inside we found a good spot to stand about 35 feet from the stage, right in front of the soundboard, center stage. After suffering through the crappy opening act we had a great vantage point from which to enjoy Nightwish.

- The performance was great. The sound quality could have been a little better - the guitarist and Marco's microphone were drowning a bit, but I'm super analytical about stuff like that.

- The place was packed shoulder to shoulder and it was pretty hot, so it was difficult to do much fist pumping, headbanging, or any other sort of physical movement.

- Anette is a doll. You can hardly take your eyes off of her when she's on the stage, no matter how badly you want to see what the rest of the band is doing. She's beautiful, her singing is amazing, her dancing is great (not forced or cheesy), and her voice when she speaks is simply enchanting. It's as if you are a young child and she is this sweet, loving, Swedish au pare who is there to take care of you, tell you a fairy tale, and tuck you in to bed. At one point she did some headbanging and I've never seen somebody make headbanging look so … cute. She brings Elegance into the world of Metal; the perfect personification of this type of band.

- Marco = Metal \m/

- Emppu is tiny. Wikipedia says he's 5'-5". Marco's microphone stand was above Emppu's head when he walked past it. He would squat down in a typical metal guitarist pose and his head would disappear below the heads of the people in the first row. From our vantage point, it seemed as if he vanished from the stage until he stood up again.

- I only met 3 of my 5 goals. Jeep and I had to get back to Omaha, so we didn't have time to wait by the tour buses for the band to come out. So I missed my chance to touch Marco's beard and Anette missed her chance to make out with me.

My friend Jee, her cousin T, Jeep, Kevineb

Drums: Jukka Nevalainen; Singer: Anette Olzon; Bass: Marco Hietala
This is kinda a cool time elapsed shot. My shutter stayed open for a long time because it was so dark - which makes things fuzzy if anything moves, especially my hands - but everything was still enough for this to be relatively clear. You can see Anette's hand is moving downward, Marco's left hand is sliding down the neck, and his right hand is moving up and down.

Keyboard/Mastermind: Tuomas Holopainen (far left); Bass: Marco Hietala (singing in this picture); Drums: Jukka Nevalainen; Singer: Anette Olzon (her back to the audience, waving her fantastic fanny. Thank you Anette!); Guitar: Emppu Vuorinen

I managed to hold the camera still and get everything in the frame even though I'm holding it over my head, not looking through it at all.

You can't tell what any of them look like in my photos, so here they are:
Marco, Tuomas, Anette, Emppu (apparently standing on a box), Jukka

Setlist for the show (not necessarily in the correct order):
Bye Bye Beautiful
Dark Chest of Wonders
The Siren
Amaranth
Sahara
The Poet and the Pendulum
Come Cover Me
Whoever Brings the Night
The Islander
Nemo
7 Days to the Wolves
(encore)
Wishmaster
Sleeping Sun
Wish I Had An Angel