Nightwish Casts a Spell on New York City

October 18, 2007 was a test for the Finnish Symphonic-Power Metal band, Nightwish. Two weeks before they released their eagerly anticipated sixth album, Dark Passion Play, to critical acclaim from magazines like Kerrang but to a divided fan base. The reason for this was the replacement of lead vocalist Tarja Turunen, a trained opera singer, with Anette Olzen. Many fans thought her performance was good on the album, but had doubts about her performing the bands older numbers.

October 18, 2007 at the Nokia Theatre in New York City was Anette’s test to see if she could fill the shoes left behind be Tarja. Needless to say she passed with flying colors.

Fans comparing Anette to Tarja have to realize that they’re two different people with two different styles. Where Tarja’s voice was deep and operatic, Anette’s voice is much softer in tone which raised the question as to whether she could pull off some of the high notes that Tarja did so effortlessly in classic songs like “Nemo�? or “Sleeping Sun.�?

However when Anette sang the opening lines of “Ever Dream�? the crowd went wild. When the song ended you could the skepticism of Anette start to wear away on people’s faces.

The band’s set was a great mix of old and new material with Anette gracefully moving about the stage and getting the crowd more and more into the show. By the time the band performed their classic “Sleeping Sun�? it didn’t matter who the front-woman was; everyone in the audience was singing along and all that mattered was the music. By the end of the night Anette proved herself as Tarja’s successor. The other members of the band kicked ass like everyone expected them to. But of course they weren’t the new ingredient Anette was so the night therefore was hers.

As for Tarja, I wish her luck in her future endeavors and hope one day there will be a duet with Anette. In the meantime check out this clip from the show as the band performs “Ever Dream.”