Nightwish - Showtime, Storytime (2013)

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Nightwish - Showtime, Storytime (2013)

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To celebrate the end of the platinum-selling Finnish symphonic metal outfit's 2013 Imaginaerum World Tour, which boasted 104 performances in 34 countries, Nightwish decided to go out with a bang and bring their opulent live show to the tiny German village of Wacken and its mammoth annual metalfest, Wacken Open Air. The first Nightwish release to feature their new singer, ex-After Forever frontwoman Floor Jansen, the powerhouse Showtime/Storytime sees the group tear through an epic 16-song set in front of 85,000 screaming fans. The Blu-ray edition adds a concert film of the 85-minute performance (filmed with 17 cameras), as well as a 120-minute tour documentary titled Please Learn the Setlist in 48 Hours and a 16-minute band table hockey tournament.

Review: Disc 1 “Showtime”: 90+Minutes of the full Nightwish headlining set ,Waken 2013.

Only a few minutes in , its already well clear Floor is just so RIGHT for Nightwish , and equally Floor has found a band so RIGHT for her:. They know it, she knows it, the 80,000 + crowd knows it, you know it. The onstage chemistry , Floor’s vocals and stage presence all certainly show it.

Earlier, heavier Nightwish classics fill the opening and closing thirds of the show, linked by a sublime run of tracks from Dark Passion Play and Imaginareum midway –enter new 6th band-member Troy Donockley on pipes and whistles for these.

Sound quality is fine, as mostly is the camera work –there is just one “but”: in the editing afterwards, somebody seems to have got more than little carried away with crowd –surfer footage: it’s not just how many such cut-aways there are, it’s also sometimes WHEN they happen - cutting at just the wrong moment across Floor or Marco or whoever in full flow -that can get kind of irritating.

Crowd-surfer overload aside, this is nevertheless a must –have, both for fans of Nightwish in particular and also equally fans of operatic/symphonic metal or rock in general. And one you might well go-back-to rather often.

Disc 2 “Storytime” (Go to Settings to select English subtitles before you start!):

Main feature is “Please learn the setlist in 48 hours”.
At 90+ minutes this could have been overlong for a “vlog” of any normal tour, but as any fan will already know the “Imaginaerum” tour was to prove anything but.

Anette chose as was her right not to appear or be heard at all, that makes for footage of “her” first half of the tour feeling unavoidably a little weird in places. We get a sense the tour all started out well enough but the band “chemistry” is already slipping downhill awhile before the gig where she is sick and the Kamelot vocalists step in…enter one Floor Jansen to the rescue from half way round the planet !

Both Floor and Troy Donockley ,still “Guest Musicans” when all this footage was shot, are now of course full members of Nightwish, so it has come to serve as a great into to both …also you can learn from Troy how to say “Uilleann Pipes”, it’s not quite like you spell it!

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Nightwish - Showtime, Storytime (2013)

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Nightwish - Showtime, Storytime (2013)

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