The Finnish band Nightwish is currently on a European tour of the same name with their new album «Endless Forms Most Beautiful», stopping at the St. Jakobshalle in Basel on Saturday, November 28, 2015. Top-class supporters like the Swedish metal band Arch Enemy and the Finns Amorphis entertained the audience with a mix of death and pagan metal. Hard guitar riffs in metal often contain elements from folk, rock, pop and even opera singing, because almost all types of music are conceivable in metal. The Finnish band Nightwish uses this tolerance to the limit, their "Symphonic Metal" mixes so many styles that by the end of the show your head is spinning.

The gates of the St. Jakobshalle in Basel opened at 17:30 p.m. to deal with the massive onslaught of fans. The hall was sold out, which means around 9000 fans wanted to experience Nightwish and their hits live. That's incredible for symphonic metal, as the band categorizes itself, and that's why the band plays in the first league in the music business. In 1996 Tuomas Holopainen, Emppu Vuorinen and singer Tarja Turunen founded the Finnish symphonic metal formation Nightwish. Shortly thereafter, drummer Jukka Nevalainen and bassist Sami Vänskä joined. The band remained in this line-up until 2001 and three studio albums, until bassist Vänskä was replaced by Marco Hietala due to discrepancies within the band. Now they really started with the albums "Century Child" and "Once". After the end of the "Once" tour in October 2005, the split with Tarja Turunen took place.

Without a singer, the Finns retreated to the studio in September 2006 to work on the successor to «Once». In the meantime, the search for a female singer was intensified and finally, at the end of May 2007, the Swede Anette Olzon, selected from around 2000 demos submitted, was presented. In the same month you could already download the first single «Eva» and in August they released the single «Amaranth». At the end of September 2007 the long-awaited album «Dark Passion Play» was released. Despite prophecies of doom, the album sold very well. In Finland they had already sold 60 copies on the second day, which earned them a double platinum award. The disc also catapulted itself to number 000 in the rest of Europe, including Germany and Switzerland. The subsequent tour was as successful as the album. Of course, the new singer wasn't met with everyone's cheers, which was often due to her different interpretation of the "Tarja" songs or simply because DieHard fans missed Tarja. The Swede worked hard (incl. collapse on stage) on herself, with simultaneous support from the other members and was able to push through as the new singer of Nightwish.

On November 11, 2011, the eagerly awaited seventh album entitled «Imaginaerum» was released. The 13 songs form the soundtrack to the Nightwish film of the same name. The tour started in 2012, on which Anette Olzon fell ill and was replaced in Denver on September 28, 2012 by Elize Ryd (Amaranthe) and Alissa White-Gluz (Kamelot, current singer with Arch Enemy). Olzon considered this decision to be wrong and a rift ensued. On October 1, 2012, news broke that Olzon had left the band by mutual agreement. The current Dutch singer Floor Jansen (After Forever, ReVamp) was hired as an initial replacement. It was not the only change / new commitment for the upcoming recordings for the eighth album «Endless Forms Most Beautiful». So Uilleann pipe player and previous guest musician Troy Donockley became a permanent member of the band. Due to severe insomnia, drummer Jukka Nevalainen had to retire. A worthy replacement has been found in Finnish Wintersun drummer Kai Hahto for the album and this tour. On March 27, 2015 the time had come and the long-awaited eighth album was released with melodies, choirs and music with an epic range in a metal guise and the tour for this album was invited to the St. Jakobshalle in Basel on November 28, 2015.

Nightwish: wannabe metal in the St. Jakobshalle in Basel

«Nightwish» will be supported on the tour and this evening by the two bands «Arch Enemy» from Sweden and «Amorphis», also from Finland. The latter band in particular is a veteran of heavy metal and shaped the Scandinavian death metal scene in the early 1990s. Over the years they continued to develop and let the progressive influence run free, as well as the guttural singing was more and more replaced by a clear, bright voice over the years. Amorphis has a lot to offer the sometimes astonished audience from 25 years of creation. Not every Nightwish fan is also a Heavy Metal fan, you can clearly see that on some (long) faces. But with evergreens like "Sky is mine" and "Hopeless Days" you also catch people who are not familiar with Amorphis. A very good performance, which is unfortunately much too short.

Amorphis setlist

1. Death of a King
2. Sacrifice
3. Hopeless Days
4. Bad Blood
5. Sky is mine
6. Silver Bride
7. The Four Wise Ones
8. House of Sleep

Nightwish: wannabe metal in the St. Jakobshalle in Basel

After Amorphis, the stage is rebuilt in a very short time and «Arch Enemy» step onto the stage that means the world. In 2014 the band saw a much-noticed change on the microphone in the metal scene. Alissa White-Gluz took over as the singer and also recorded the last album. A treat for those in the know to experience the new singer live. A real powerhouse with dyed blue hair leaves no doubt that she's the right cast. The costume she wears seems a bit strange and is more reminiscent of belonging to «The X-Men». The setlist is clearly influenced by the last two albums «War Eternal» and «Khaos Legions». There aren't any songs from the old days, with two exceptions, but that doesn't detract from the performance and its good quality.

Set list Arch Enemy

1. Yesterday Is Dead and Gone
2. Was Eternal
3. Ravenous
4. Stolen Life
5. You will know my name
6. As the Pages Burn
7. Under Black Flags We March
8. Avalanche
9. No gods, no masters
10. Nemesis

At 21:10 p.m. the curtain was drawn up for the renovation break and after a short intro, a brilliant light, video and music installation pours out onto the eagerly waiting crowd with fat bangs and a splendid pyro show. Nightwish singer Floor Jansen takes a bouncy step onto the stage. What a presence for the pretty Dutch woman, who with her charisma immediately casts a spell over the audience. As much as the separations of the previous front women divided the fans, Nightwish have found the perfect replacement in Floor Jansen. You can also tell the rest of the band, especially Marco Hietala and Emppu Vuorinen, the joy of taking the audience into a mixture of dream and film world. This is supported by an insane video installation in the background and recurring pyrotechnics in the form of mini flamethrowers or smaller Bengali effects such as gyroscopes. The light show and sound do the rest to make the evening unforgettable for most of the visitors.

The fans have fun, clap and sing along with joy. But sometimes the sound of the Finns is so close to kitsch for me that you almost feel like you're being made fun of - the whole thing is called metal and actually has nothing to do with metal, apart from the guitar riffs. Nightwish are powerful compositions that could also have come from Hans Zimmer. But when only spherical keyboard sounds, organ and panpipes to Floor Jansen's pretty little voice ring out, there really isn't any trace of metal anymore - unfortunately also nothing of irony, which might have explained these excesses of pathos. At least I don't see any hair bangs, except maybe this one from Floor himself. But the show is definitely great, unlike other bands, everything from the stage design to the flamethrowers is coordinated with the sound, underlines it and puts it in the center. The video effects are almost spherical and just look great with this film music, just from that alone you could get your brain fluttering. Nightwish mixed so many styles at their concert that by the end of the show your head is spinning. Nightwish combine past, present and future into a flawless whole. Is it time for a new era? It's time for «Endless Forms Most Beautiful».

Nightwish set list

1. Shudder Before the Beautiful
2. Yours Is an Empty Hope
3. Ever Dream
4. She is my sin
5. My Walden
6. The Islander
7. Momentum
8. weak fantasy
9. 7 Days to the Wolves
10. alpenglow
11. Storytime
12. Nemo
13. star gazers
14. Sleeping Sun
15. Ghost Love Score
16. Last ride of the day
17. The Greatest Show on Earth

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