Nightwish Decades Tour at the Kalamazoo State Theatre

Two years ago, I had to travel a couple of hours east to Royal Oak to see Nightwish in concert. This year they made a stop in Kalamazoo, just about an hour south.

The Kalamazoo State Theatre is an interesting venue, but I wasn't terribly impressed with it as a concert hall. It has an old-time theatre feel inside, and it appeared that all the seats have a good view. There's a small open area in front of the stage, but most of the place is filled with standard seating. I was up in the second level, where I could see the stage just fine, but felt very cramped. The acoustics weren't great at all, in my opinion, particularly on the first couple of songs. Perhaps I got used to it as the concert went on, or maybe they made some adjustments, since things sounded much better later on. I think I'd enjoy seeing plays at this theatre, but it's definitely not my top choice for concerts.

Fortunately, the band is great and overcame the drawbacks of the venue. Nightwish has great stage presence and got the crowd into the show quickly, which is especially impressive when there's no opening act to warm things up. The stage backdrop was a screen playing various song-specific images, which I thought really added to the experience. They played for almost exactly two hours and I enjoyed every minute of it.

The set list was pulled from all across the Nightwish catalog, all 20+ years of it (thus the "Decades" tour name). I recognized all but one song pretty much right away, but then I've been listening to the band for more than 10 years myself. (That one was Slaying the Dreamer...looked it up later and found it was on Century Child, the one album I haven't listened to very often.) I particularly enjoyed the tracks from Once, including Ghost Love Score and Wish I Had An Angel.

Everyone who attended got a Decades CD to take home, which feels a bit 1990s. Probably that was the point. I may never open mine, since I do all my listening to music digitally these days. Nice to have a souvenir, though.