Article by Chazzyf
Festival information: Bang Your Head Festival - Messegelände Balingen, Germany - 28 June 2002
Once Fozzy had disappeared from view, the sense of anticipation in the crowd made it very clear that Nightwish was the band that most of the audience was there to see - including a very welcome large young female contingent. The set was very much based around the new album, 'Century Child' - perhaps too much so, as the excellent opening numbers 'Bless the Child' and 'End of all Hope' received only a lukewarm response. However, as singer Tarja Turunen introduced 'Come Cover Me' and 'Kinslayer', from the best selling 'Wishmaster' album, the crowd exploded into life.
The band's new bassist, Marco Hietala, introduced the next song 'Dead To the World' which is one in which he duets with Tarja. The exchange of vocal parts sounded great, but once again there was a marked difference between the response to the new song and that which greeted 'Sacrament of Wilderness', from the 1998 album 'Oceanborn' - clearly a huge favourite with the German audience. Two further new songs followed: 'Slaying The Dreamer' and 'Beauty of the Beast', both introduced by Marco, whose vocals once again figure prominently, before Tarja introduced "the final song" 'Wishmaster' which was greeted by a huge cheer and during which the audience continued to sing and dance gleefully.
As the band were one step down from headlining the festival and they'd been on stage barely fifty minutes or so, an encore or two was inevitable. They began with the beautiful, slow ballad 'Sleeping Sun' (a big hit in Germany) and then played "a song Gary Moore has done" - namely 'Over the Hills and Far Away' from their more recent EP of the same name. A good set, but a little shorter than everyone wanted and one that suffered in places from poor sound, so overall I was a little disappointed.
Setlist:
Bless The Child, End of All Hope, Come Cover Me, Kinslayer, Dead To The World, Sacrament of Wilderness, Slaying The Dreamer, Beauty of The Beast, Wishmaster
Encores:
Sleeping Sun, Over The Hills and Far Away
