CONCERT REVIEW: Nightwish Showcase Musical Prowess During Phenomonal Amsterdam Show

Nightwish are back in Amsterdam, in the Ziggo Dome, just like on their last tour. The only difference? This time they sold-out the massive 17k venue twice, months in advance! The reason behind this? Vocalist Floor Jansen got massively famous in The Netherlands due to a Dutch TV-program, which also means good business for Nightwish as a whole, as the symphonic metal act has broken through to the mainstream media and fans.

After selling out the AFAS LIVE as a solo act, it was now time for the Finnish metal band to entertain a solid 34k fans over the course of two evenings with their 2-hour-long set. We witnessed proceedings on the first night and were utterly impressed.

We saw Nightwish on their previous tour back in 2019, which was an incredible show, but tonight trumps it. Nightwish pulled out all the stops, pyro and fireworks included. Truthfully though, an act with such talented musicians, who play the most melodic of symphonic metal, really do not need that many gimmicks to impress. Nevertheless, it did make for pleasing visuals to go along with the goth-influenced symphonic metal.

The theme of the tour is the most recently released album Human. :ll: Nature., with some focus as well on the 2021 released Remastered version of Once. Both these albums made up more than half of the setlist, which made for a nice combination of new and old, albeit the old songs recently being refreshed in the fans’ minds. Besides from the new and remastered material, of course the fan favourites including Élan. It goes without saying that The Phantom Of The Opera was played this fine evening, in fact, the rendition that made Floor Jansen over-night famous in homecountry The Netherlands together with opera vocalist Henk Poort. This live collaboration was welcomed by a loud, enthuastic the crowd.

Now don’t get me wrong, the entirety of Nightwish is incredibly talented and it truly showed throughout the show, but as a fellow Dutch person, I’d be doing Floor Jansen a disservice by not zooming in on her (in my humble opinion) unmatched vocal talent within this scene. She’s gotten famous over-night in our small country with her rendition of The Phantom Of The Opera really to no surprise, as it sounded beyond incredible. Imagine a 2-hour set of this angelic voice throughout songs with for the ordinary hard-to-reach high notes, epic riffs and catchy keys. While the band focused mainly on the music, it was up to Jansen to maintain communication with the audience through chat and dance, which she seamlessly weaved in.

I was quick to dismiss the visuals, as it pales in comparison to the music, but besides the tons and tons of pyro and steam, the massive screens behind the band complimented the show extraordinarily well. Taking the fans on a journey through exquisite landscape as the melodies inscribed the senses is a combination Nightwish have mastered through and through.

Even if symphonic metal is not among your ‘main genres’, you’d be foolish to skip a Nightwish show if you have the opportunity to go, even if it’s just once just to see what the buzz is about. We for one are grateful to have been there and would love to give you an idea of what the show looked like via the gallery below!

Glenn van den Bosch

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