PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Monday 8th June saw around a thousand Nightwish fans descend on the Finnish port city of Turku for the first ever Nightwish cruise.
After checking in at the passenger terminal (in the case of some fans, many hours before boarding), fans waited for the ship to arrive for them to board. As the boarding time drew closer the number of fans swelled from a few hundred to at least a thousand.
Finally we boarded, and while most fans headed to their cabins to drop their bags off before heading to one of the bars or restaurants on board for food and drink, some hardcore fans raced straight to the doors of the starlight lounge where that evening’s show was to be held – around 4 hours after departure. That gives an idea of how dedicated some of the fans were – by the time Nightwish went on stage at 11.30pm, some fans had queued for around 12 hours just to make sure they got a spot on the barrier for the show.
After an enjoyable meal, I headed to the starlight lounge around 40 minutes before the start of the show. After 20 minutes of queuing the doors were opened and people flooded in for the show. It’s a nice venue holding around a thousand people, with most in the main floor with others on a balcony level, and the bar staff were kept busy by the thirsty fans – the Finns in particular seemed to enjoy a few drinks.
As Floor Jansen said shortly after they kicked off, “The boat may be rocking beneath us but we won’t rock you so gently”. What a show it was – a fairly basic stage setup on the small stage, but it did the job just fine. There was good lighting and good quality sound, and the band were determined to put in a great performance on this historic occasion. A mix of old songs and songs from the new album was a great setlist, and appeared to match the ones from the U.S. tour dates.
The band all look to be having a great time, and Floor really does seem like the perfect frontwoman for the band – she’s got the vocal talents and she’s got a great stage presence, and during the heavier parts, there is hair flying everywhere as Floor, Tuomas and the others headbang or windmill.
When the show finally ended after 1am, my first thought was that I can’t wait to see them on tour later in the year, particularly as they’ll have a full stage show then.
Setlist:
Shudder Before the Beautiful
Yours Is an Empty Hope
Amaranth
She Is My Sin
Dark Chest of Wonders
My Walden
Nemo
Élan
Weak Fantasy
Storytime
I Want My Tears Back
7 Days to the Wolves
Stargazers
Sleeping Sun
The Greatest Show on Earth (chapters 2: Life and 3: The Toolmaker )
Ghost Love Score
Last Ride of the Day
A walk on deck after the show was quite strange – having seen the sun set at 11pm, if you looked ahead of the boat the sky was dark, but looking back to the east it was light as the sun started to rise.
Overnight the boat continued west to Sweden, docking briefly in Stockholm around 6 or 7am before heading on towards another couple of ports and eventually back towards Finland.
During the day there were various activities – a quiz, and a bingo session both of which enabled fans to win a pass for a meet and greet with the band. There was also a karaoke session, and I’m sad to say I heard part of it before rushing to a bar for a strong drink to erase the memory of it.
The highlight of the return leg though was an acoustic set from Marco and Troy. After some joking from Marco, they started the set. With just the two of them seated playing acoustic guitar and both singing there was a very intimate feel to the performance despite the venue being full of fans.
Unlike the main Nightwish performance, this was not Nightwish songs – instead they played a selection of covers of songs they liked, and after Marco joked about wanting more money as he’d expected to play in front of 50 people they kicked off with a cover of “Money” by Pink Floyd.
As well as playing acoustic guitar, Troy also played the various instruments he plays with Nightwish- the Uillean pipes being one. A surprise though was when he sang – he’s got a great voice.
The relaxed intimate feel continued through the set – before bringing on Nightwish drummer Kai Hahto they joked about him enjoying a drink or two, and before playing “Alone” they played the Intro to “My heart will go on”, the Celine Dion song that was the titanic theme, till Floor stopped them saying they must be mad playing it on a ship.
With Kai Hahto joining Troy and Marco before “Ace of spades”, and Floor joining for “Alone”, they ended up with. Out of Nightwish playing.
For the final song they did a Nightwish song – “Edema Ruh”, which they said had never been played in public before, so we were the first fans to hear it played live. The acoustic version of it sounded fantastic, and it was a great way to end the show.
Setlist;
Money (Pink floyd)
Wonderful life (Black)
Locomotive breath (Jethro tull)
Rock around the clock (Bill Haley and the comets)
Ace of spades (Motörhead)
Alone (Heart)
Edema Ruh (Nightwish)
Sadly that acoustic show was almost the end of the trip as the boat docked an hour or two later.
This was my first time doing a cruise with bands playing, and it was a lot of fun – a boat load of music lovers all intent on having a great trip meant it was a really enjoyable trip. It may have been just a 24 hour cruise but I’m glad I travelled to Finland for it, and the performances from Nightwish really were fantastic. I hope they do another cruise next year.
