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definitelynotalibrary · 7 years

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This is my Nightwish (long, under the cut)

It started with four songs.

Over the Hills and Far Away, Wanderlust, Nemo, and Sleeping Sun, mistakenly titled “Eclipse” on the file I had.

I cannot tell you exactly when I received them, or the name of the person who gave them to me. All I remember is that it was 2005 (possibly 2004), and it was a friend of a friend I met on Neopets.

Wanderlust especially intrigued me because I was deeply into Dragonlance and it reminded me of kender. Over the Hills and Far Away was cool. I have always wanted to write a short story about the plot of that song. I want to say my version of Sleeping Sun was the 2005 version, but I am not sure. Either way, I adored it. I still think of it as “Eclipse” sometimes because for the longest time, that is what I thought it was called.

But of course, Nemo is what won my heart. How many of us say the same? There is just something about that song that draws you in. You get lost in it, enfolded in its haunting beauty. It is easily Tarja’s best song and one that each of the subsequent singers has rocked in their own unique style. There are many excellent and gorgeous songs in Nightwish’s repertoire, but Nemo is the most famous and it is the song I am sure many of us use to get our friends into the band.

So the reason I know that I was introduced to the band in 2005 is because it is the year my uncle got married to his second wife. They were married in Vegas, and this was before I had an MP3 device, so I was still rocking the CD player. I burned all four of those songs onto a CD and played it on repeat. During the plane ride, while we walked around the Strip…I was solidly hooked. (Fun side fact: The real reason I know it was 2005 is because I got sick on that trip and had to stay in the hotel while my family went and saw the fourth Harry Potter movie. That was the only one I never saw in theaters, which was fine by me. I got to hang out by myself in a hotel room and watch The Mummy for the first time.)

“Woah. He looks EVIL!” <- My mother’s first reaction to Marco in the MV for Wish I Had an Angel. Again, my memory is bad, so I do not know when I started looking up music videos. But I remember that one moment very clearly. I mean…she’s not wrong.

My parents never disapproved of Nightwish though, despite their rather quiet fourteen year old anime and fantasy nerd suddenly obsessing over heavy metal. Sorry; symphonic power metal. Actually, the more I listened, the more it grew on them to the point where they were willing to drive six hours from Raleigh to Atlanta to see their show in 2007. But that is getting ahead of myself.

Learning about Tarja leaving was devastating. During the interim though, I was able to get deeper and deeper into the band. Once was my first album, and the others very quickly followed. It didn’t take me long to realize exactly why I loved this band so much.

Tuomas.

Tuomas was, and is, the heart of the band to me. The more I read about him, the more I loved him. He has such an obvious passion for his work. I love the music of the band, but it was the lyrics that sold me. I have always been a voracious reader of fantasy novels, and here he was creating these stories in song. English was my favorite subject in school (I now have a BA in Creative Writing), and I often had fun trying to decipher the symbolic and hidden meaning of his work. The songs are so full of literary allusions and metaphors…I still want to sit down and create an in-depth analysis of Song of Myself just for giggles. In fact, I DID use The Escapist in lieu of a poem in a college freshman English class. That was awesome.

As was everyone, I was apprehensive at the idea of a new singer. They announced Anette and she seemed fine. If I remember correctly, they released small previews of some of the songs and they were different, but not bad. I bought Dark Passion Play the moment it came out. I was so excited. I immediately played it when my mom and I got to the car.

That first time was breathtaking. Poet and the Pendulum regularly is cited as my favorite song of theirs. My mom immediately fell in love with 7 Days to the Wolves and Jukka’s drumming. She’s always had a thing for percussion. To this day, when we are in the car together and playing DPP, we will belt out most of the songs together in perfect time. My mom doesn’t often blast music, but Nightwish is an exception.

The concert in 2007 was a revelation. I had only ever been to one concert before, and it was an Aerosmith outdoors concert that I kind of appreciated, but we were all the way in the last row of an outdoor stadium, so it was difficult to get into it.

This one though…it was held in a small club that someone said was just waiting to fall down because the owner’s didn’t really repair it much. We were two or three rows from the front standing to the left in front of Tuomas’ pianos. Yes, I said "we." My mother stood right next to me the whole time. My dad, who it turned out was a bit of an introvert (and also was 6’6” tall), stayed in the back.

Y’all, nothing prepared me for this experience. The opening act was Paradise Lost, whom I honestly cannot remember. The sound was loud and the mics were fuzzy. Nightwish shined. The floor shook, the crowd surged behind me, I almost got kicked in the face by an attempted crowd surfer, my mom was a trooper, and I got to shake Marco’s hand. Poet and the Pendulum brought me to tears and gave me chills all over. We went home the next day with shirts and (to my surprise at Christmas), hoodies. That hoodie became my favorite article of clothing. I still have it. I wore it almost daily when it was cool enough.

The years went on. I learned to never read YouTube comments on Nightwish videos, I gained a deeper appreciation for the more “classic” albums (Century Child is my jam), and I phased in and out of my obsession.

Imaginaerum came out when I was in college. The preorder slip was one of my Christmas gifts in December 2011. I strong-armed a couple of my friends into agreeing to go to the concert in Salt Lake City with me on Sepetember 29th, 2012. Our college was in Idaho, and we did not have (reliable) cars to drive down, or the money for a hotel, but we made it. Found a ride on a rideshare board, stayed with my friend’s aunt(?), and begged a ride from a local friend two and from the concert. It was an unpleasant trip filled with too much junk food (I still cannot eat Cadbury eggs. Don’t ask; it was a bad idea).

As before, the concert was great. Kamelot was their opening act, and though I had heard some of their stuff before, I definitely fell in love with Tommy that night. I did notice Anette wasn’t quite as engaged with the audience and their whole show felt a little muted, but I attributed that to her having just been ill in Denver a day or so before.

My friends had a fun time, too. One of my friends is rather small, and we were concerned she would get swallowed by the crowd, but she was a champ. Pushed people who pushed her back. She was great. There was this annoying teenage girl in a corset or something that pushed her boobs into everyone’s faces and she was trying to brag about how her daddy paid for her ticket. We just deadpanned her and talked about how we three grown-ass college students paid for our own tickets and drove 4+ hours to get here.

The highlight of that concert was that the people behind us, more Kamelot fans than Nightwish, proved to be really cool people. We talked a bit and I expressed my love for Tuomas and later the girl caught a towel he threw into the audience. And she gave it to me. I was over the moon.

Once again, shock when it was announced Anette was leaving not TWO DAYS LATER. I was at her last concert and had no idea.

I’d grown very attached to Anette, so I was slow to warm up to Floor. She was this tall, Amazonian woman with a nose ring who headbanged like I had never seen before. I wasn’t totally sold on Elan when the music video came out.

To be honest, I didn’t WANT to like her. There was too much change. First Troy was added and I was like “OK, not surprising, he has been touring with them,” and THEN my mother’s dear Jukka announced he was stepping back and someone else was replacing him. It was all just too much change! I almost tentatively purchased Endless Forms Most Beautiful, hesitant and almost afraid. And I learned how wrong I was.

Floor was perfect. She combined what I loved about the other two singers and added her own flair on top of it. The songs were as epic and grand as any of the others, and above all, it just felt like Nightwish. I still loved Tarja and Anette, but I found that I had room in my heart for Floor, too.

So when I found out they were going to be in my town (which was now Kansas City), I of course had to go. My mom came too, though my dad passed. Standing in line, people went through and asked if anyone wanted to upgrade to VIP. I worked up my nerve and did it! I figured, why not. Third time’s the charm.

I was nervous as anything and shyer than I have ever been. And, of course, woefully unprepared. I had them sign my ticket and my phone case. Over a year later and they are mostly faded, but I had put a little clear nail polish over them, so some of them really aren’t TOO bad. I met everyone except Marco, who was bizarrely absent.

The concert started, and for the third time I was almost front row, but off to the left. Delain and Sonata Arctica were fantastic. Nightwish came on and Marco looked PISSED. He ended up throwing his guitar and walking off stage midway through the first song. He reappeared with another guitar, but still looked angry. I guess there was something wrong with his sound. After another song, he apologized and everything was alright again. They shone, the energy was intoxicating, and they left everyone wanting more.

I do not think I can adequately describe what Nightwish means to me honestly. They were my first band, really. I had liked some music before them, but not quite the same. They elevated my taste and changed me forever. I taught myself to sing by listening to Tarja (was devastated to learn I am not an actual soprano ahah), and their music has consistently helped me write when blocked. I fall asleep like a baby when listening to their music, it pumps me up when I am excited, it helps me vent when I am angry, and it calms me down when I am depressed. It helped me when we moved across states after my freshman year in high school. It was there during the worst roommates of my college time. It’s helped me get through my dad’s death. Any time I need to, I can sink into their sound, letting it envelop me once more and carry me off to a peaceful place. In so many ways, it feels like this band was MEANT for me.

#nightwish #music #tarja turunen #anette olzon #floor jansen #Tuomas Holopainen #marco hietala #jukka nevalainen #emppu vuorinen #troy donockley #kai hahto

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