Night Wishes

I'm beginning to understand my friend Maarit, who is a huge fan of Nightwish.

I've always thought Nightwish had some nice songs, but since I'm not that excited about the heavier stuff (in general) I've never really listened to them that much. Or the other bands some of my friends so enthusiastically listen to, the kinds I tend to categorize under the title "awful noise with no melody and lots of angry men yelling". Well, that's quite an exaggerated statement, but serves my point. When I was asked to come to this gig, I thought I'd be curious and go see what the Finnish music industry so proudly exports. A good decision, I must say. I had the best of time tonight. Nightwish proved to be well worth getting to know. I think I have to borrow some of their albums from somewhere now.

Music is best enjoyed in a live situation, though. This was true also in this case. Maarit ran to the front row with me in tow and so I ended up in second row with perfect view of the stage. (I was also wearing my high heel boots, so I towered over most of the crowd anyway...) The warm-up band (Twilightning, I think) was ok, but when Nightwish came on to the stage the crowd went wild and I had a strange feeling of chills. It might have been the intro though, it sounded like the theme from King Arthur - I felt like I was missing a sword (or a bow) and a horse and the chills were a sign of something big coming my way. Wow, I must say.

I don't like to pretend I know anything about the music I heard tonight, I'll leave that discussion for the ones that really know their Nightwish. For a Nightwish-beginner like me, the concert seemed just great. It was nice to hear material from their new album (the songs that I know from radio...) and also some old favourites, like The Phantom of the Opera. Which of course isn't a Nightwish original, although it sounds amazing when Tarja and Marco sing it together.

I said I'm beginning to understand Maarit a bit (or a lot) better. One of the reasons for that is watching her favourite, Tuomas, perform. He plays the keyboard and my goodness. Some major charm at work there! He seems to flirt not only with the audience (oh, I'm sure he looked straight at me many times - and so think probably all the other girls, too, in the general direction I was in...) but also with the instrument he plays. His expressions ranged from a crazed stare (the kind you see in old vampire films, when the vamp looks down on its prey) to a cute grin. I couldn't help but laugh when he crouched behind the keyboards, took a sip of wine and peeked from under his instrument into the crowd. That would've been a perfect photo moment. :) Other would've been any of the times he played while wildly throwing his hair about. I don't understand how can anyone hit any right keys when they do that at the same time.

Which brings me to another thing I had time to ponder about tonight. Men and long hair. I've always been jealous of men who have longer and prettier hair than I do. Well, tonight I saw plenty of that sort. I wonder, since not all guys look good with long hair, is it some kind of a requirement for getting into a band of this sort, that the guys need to look good with long hair? If they happen to have short hair when they come to the job interview, do they have to present a photo manipulation of themselves with long hair? The lead singer of Twilightning, the visiting guitar player of the same band and well, all the guys in Nightwish (Tuomas above all, I think) were prime examples of men with annoyingly pretty or long hair. One has to say, however, that Tarja also has beautiful black (&long) hair, so she really doesn't stand in shame beside her fellow Nightwishers.

Well, I suppose I have to let the experience sink in a bit, right now I have a night wish myself. A wish for sleep for the rest of the night. Preferably with some pleasant dreams of cute men with long hair. :)

Nighty night.