Up-Load UK, Gigs News & reviews Nightwish

What the fuck? This queue is bloody huge!' says a Nightwish as he walks to the back of a queue that somehow manages to snake it's way around three or four blocks, the back of the queue must be a good half a mile away from the actual venue. The crowd are left puzzled and bewildered by the length of the queue; many of them have probably seen smaller queues at festivals, the writer being one of them. But eventually the queue starts moving, and very quickly it does too, it seems the fans get into the venue quicker than it took them to walk to the back of queue.

The writer arrives in the venue about three songs into UK Goth legends, Paradise Lost's set and his first impression is 'What a bunch of miserable bastards.' As he scrambles like an idiot trying to find his seat in the dark with no help whatsoever from the dim-witted security. The band keep to the back of the stage and (bar the Guitarist to the crowds left) do not so much as flinch once during their whole set. The songs themselves sound strong in the studio environment, but live they really do fail to excite anyone at all, the sound problems the band seem to be having are also not helping this. The band achieve mixed reactions from the crowd, the strongest being material from the 'Draconian Times' album. The band play a few songs from the most recent, self titled album which gets nothing more out of the audience than a mere few coughs and sniffs. Overall, a disappointing, dull, uninspired set.

As the crowd go off for a beer and to buy their lovely, lovely merchandise the writer sits firmly in his circle seat and waits for one of his favourite bands to grace the Hammersmith Apollo stage, Finnish legends, Nightwish.

The crowd shuffle back into the main hall and wait impatiently for the legends they have paid a small fee of £17.50 to be musically educated by. A few minutes later the lights finally go out and a dramatic intro starts, the band can be seen taking to the stage and Hammersmith Apollo hears the first words they have been waiting to hear all of evening 'Once I had a dream and this is it?'

The band charge right into one of their heaviest tracks 'Dark Chest of Wonders' and the crowd go absolutely friggin' mental; they could almost drown out the band! Nightwish grab the bull by the horns and don't let go once, they give the crowd everything they've got without stopping for a full 90 minutes. The band treat us to a few surprises such as 'Ever Dream' and an interesting cover of 'The Phantom Of The Opera' which both go down rather well and of course, an amazing vocal sole from vocalist Tarja entitled ' Kuolema Tekke Taiteilijan' which the writer believes he has spelt right. One complaint however is that the setlist doesn't really contain enough pre-Century Child material which is a slight let down.

The band play all the crowd pleasers such as 'Wishmaster', 'The Kinslayer', 'Slaying The Dreamer' and 'Sleeping Sun' they also play one of their most famous songs entitled Nemo which goes down well, but the real highlight of the evening, and I think 5000 other people will agree with me when I say this, was Ghost Love Score, a ten minute, courageous epic that the crowd lap up, it is a very emotional moment for fans who have never witnessed the song live before and even for people have witnessed it's beauty in a live environment before! After the band have finished, arguably, the highlight of the evening they close with I Wish I Had An Angel, the writer looks around and he can see tears being wiped away from the eyes of many a dedicated fan, this was truly the best gig the writer had ever witnessed.