Beware the Nightwish, it may evolve into the Beast in Black...

Floor singing a rendition of Tarja's old songs

Hello and welcome back to my blog! I've been meaning to post this for a while, but there's been a lot of chaos surrounding us that I just haven't been sticking to the once a week upload. Plus still wanting to be partially private about my life, I've chosen not to disclose everything we get up to.

But before I get side tracked, let's get back to the real reason I posted this. So since my introduction to grunge/Nu-Metal that came in the form of Linkin Park, I was always someone that wanted to go to gigs. And for the main part of my teens I did have the opportunity once having moved to the UK to go to various types of gigs.

Since dating, I think the last gig I went to happened to be a metal festival in 2012 which was 6 years ago, so when the advert for Nightwish + Guest came up on my Instagram feed, I just knew this was the opportunity to remedy the situation. So come April, an every few second refresh on the booking page was executed and finally we bagged some pretty good seats. For me, a Decade Tour was the best way to get an overarching view of the bands journey through all 3 singers they've had; and whilst we weren't sure who the band joining them was, I knew it would be someone not too far from their own style…And boy we were not disappointed.

So cue the next few months and some key events happen in between, but the focus in terms of planned activities for the year this was the initial highlight. Roll on 11 December I wasn't as smart as Si to book the full day off and still needed to make my way to the station around midday and resulted in me having to go from Leeds back to Bradford just to get on the dreaded Manchester Victoria train. Luckily I didn't have to drag my bags with as Si brought them with him; so all I needed to do was run for my train (a clear pattern is evolving here….see Nottingham post) and meet him on the platform. I didn't relish the trip as it meant going via Rochdale which in itself holds some pretty bad memories; although that's not to say people from Rochdale are an issue, and eventually got to the station. Queue London all over again and some trouble came from locating the hotel, but we eventually found it a little sweatier than anticipated.

The room itself was a beautiful blue and had some nice views of the city, it also turned out not to be too far from the station and had we not got lost…would definitely have found it sooner. After a decent wash in a rather nice shower, I found myself unhappy with my clothes choices and had hoped to wear some better clothes to the gig, but suffering from some swollen ankles meant I was too self conscious to show my legs. Nevertheless we got dressed and made our way to town to grab a bite to eat. Naturally the place of choice was Hard Rock Café….This had to be an absolute highlight as I got to watch Si willingly eat avocado for the first time ever! Down a couple drinks and having tucked into some Ribs and a burger we felt nice and full ready to rock (pun intended) and downed a few more to the sounds of Nightwish who coincidentally were being played at the restaurant.

Now hindsight I wish I'd snuck drinks in despite the policy as the cost of basic water was extortionate (they didn't check our bags and when sat down people seemed to have their own drinks) We made our way through town with a detour to Next to pick up a better suited shirt for SI and then walked by the infamous German Christmas Market. Gossip and gandering happened a lot and when we got to Victoria went through some metal detectors put in place since the Manchester bombings post Ariana. Luckily we'd been smart and chosen not to wear heavy chain clothes; however saying that I was completely shocked at most people's choice of clothes.

Clearly I wasn't part of the normal scene as I'd have thought typical gig clothes would have been more cult like and although there were plenty of people rocking up in band merch or black; there was a high volume of people rocking up in bog standard clothing and even slacks! Women were walking down very steep stairs with open beer cups that made me very nervous and oh my god…the number of times people kept getting up and down drove me absolutely nuts!

So when we got to the show the supporting band logo was showing. This was the first time we'd heard of "The Best in Black". Oh it was a life changing event, the band were amazing the guys vocals were phenomenal as you can hear above and how I'd wished I'd had a better phone to capture everything. Nevertheless after the gig it was funny to see how everyone was saying in the comments section that with this guy's vocal range he could easily have done both singing parts in Nightwish. Yeah I know that's not Nightwish's thing, but maybe they should reconsider. When talking to friends of friends turns out they're not as exclusive as I'd thought and have a pretty big following here in the UK. Whilst Floor has some vocals on her, I just think that Best in Black was so much better and it was almost a bit of a come down watching Floor and the band. It was also quite sad that a lot of people chose not to watch Beast and only came during the break for the changeover of bands. Honestly I feel like they lost out on a fantastic experience. We will definitely be looking out for UK tour dates and whilst we went for Nightwish, we landed up staying to the Beast in Black.

I hope if you haven't already that you'll YouTube the band or watch the above video and give the band a like and support. And as always….Ciao for Now!