With few new releases right now we take the opportunity to have another look at Night-ish, a UK-based tribute band to the Finnish symphonic metal group Nightwish, which has impressed me.
There are few such homage bands to Nightwish, anywhere. Nightwish’s music is very demanding to play, with multiple pivots and key, tempo and time signature changes and including precise co-ordination of orchestral and choral music and videos via Digital Audio Workstations, MIDI automation and such paraphernalia.
Fortunately they didn’t have to contend with pyrotechnics here as well but I spotted an occasion where the use of a magnesium flash might work well if they can gain permission to fire one. ‘Elf ‘n safety, you know, not like with the 1970s prog bands when they were going off somewhere every night.
It takes bravado even to attempt any Nightwish song and that is one of the reasons my attention was rapidly drawn to Night-ish. I have seen many tribute bands over the years but few with any semblance of their technical standard and none with the sheer chutzpah of Night-ish. They are every bit as unique as the band they replicate with such audacity.
Their musicianship apart, one advantage that Night-ish has over other tribute bands – and I don’t know if this is merely coincidence or representative of a thoughtful business strategy (which is more likely), is that they have in John Maggs, who is the owner of a PA Hire company, an excellent sound and lighting man and video producer. In that final respect the equivalent of Ville Lipiäinen if you know the Nightwish ‘family’ and the sort of 12th Man that every band aspires to have. He is responsible for most of their videos you will see, including this one.
As I write, Night-ish is about to take to the stage in South Wales, their first serious detour from their English South Coast home, and to play what is only their 11th gig. I suspect you’ll find that hard to believe when you watch this video.
On 20th June they played what I think is their most recent gig otherwise, in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. It can be viewed, in two separate videos, on YouTube, and there has been a very positive live, in situ on the night, review of it posted by the metal music blog Hotel Hobbies.
The band would prefer me not to link those two videos here until full post-production has been done on them and I’m happy to concur.
The show surprisingly opened with ‘Taikatalvi’ (‘Magic Winter’), the first track on the ‘Imaginaerum’ album, leading, as indeed it does on the album, straight on to the classic ‘Storytime’.
Again that takes some nerve, for your opening song to be a ballad sung in Finnish by an Italian lady living in England, and a track not that well known either. The equivalent perhaps of Nightwish’s Decades tour in 2018, the ticking clock countdown followed unexpectedly by Troy Donockley’s laid back interpretation of the opening passages of ‘Swanheart’ on the flute and pipes.
But at least one song, one of Nightwish’s opuses, ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ (TGSOE) has already received that video treatment, got the stamp of approval, and is the focus of this review.
They’ve played TGSOE, which is a monumental undertaking, progressively in an ever widening form, bit by bit, for some time now and at Abingdon completed the transition to the full blown version of the epic track that chronicles the story of life, civilisation and how it is being destroyed, although it ended up around four minutes shorter at sixteen and a half minutes due to a curtailed intro and I understand the decision to do that. The original does go on a bit!
Unfortunately Night-ish then played the instrumental outro which features a voiceover from the biologist Richard Dawkins, here voiced by drummer Stephen Fletcher; the infamous ”We are all going to die” monologue. To be frank, I hope they will consider avoiding it and its cloying negativity that only serves to contradict the life affirming ethos of what went before it.
That is the only negative remark you will find here. Otherwise the entire performance is marvelous.
The numerous stand-outs for me include:
Ryan Bareham’s ability to play note perfect keyboards while integrating background orchestral and choral sections to the highest standards.
The way they have thought their way around the parts of the song for which they don’t have the instrumentation, such as the use of vocalist Irene Palmas’ tin whistle, which rises to the occasion.
The way they build atmosphere and emotion. No band on Earth can do it better than Nightwish. Night-ish aren’t far behind.
As a drummer once (many moons ago) I am particularly impressed with Steve Fletcher, a Marko Hietala doppelganger and escapee from Middle-earth who has apparently spent most of his career behind the kit drumming for other top level tribute bands but who had little or no previous exposure to Nightwish. He follows the patterns of both Jukka Nevalainen and Kai Hahto slavishly and that is no mean feat. (I could have said no mean feet there but opted not to pun and in any case he only has one kick drum!).
I wondered how he would handle the fill at 09:09 in the video below and it’s pretty much note perfect.
Night-ish is so tight partly down to him and partly on account of the contribution of bassist Ian Stephenson, who looks like he is spaced out in a zone of his own during the show but who grinds out quite complex lines remorselessly and effortlessly.
Guitarist Jordan Averchenko has the appearance of Nightwish’s Emppu Vuorinen on stilts with a beard and wooly hat and what looks like Emppu’s purple guitar, and is equally adept at his melodious riffs and the more subtle work of Troy Donockley with his Ebow, taking on both roles readily here and with panache.
And that leaves the vocals, from Irene, who tackles the difficult role of channeling any of the three Nightwish singers never mind all of them.
To my mind Irene has more of Anette Olzon about her than of Tarja Turunen or Floor Jansen and I’m more than happy to express that sentiment. Her performance is simpatico from beginning to end and increasingly she tackles both the highest and lowest notes, never mind the grunts, with aplomb.
And you know what, her diction at times is even better than that of the three Nightwish vocalists.
When she urges everyone to ‘unite’ with the band she does it with such sincerity and authority that you’d think she’s representing Gaia.
This is the link to the Abingdon show and after it to the Nightwish performance at Tampere in Finland in 2015.
I challenge you. Ignore the visuals and just listen to both of them. Convince me that it is easy to spot the difference (except where Night-ish have actually embellished the original!). (Tip – It isn’t!)
Other gigs are under consideration within and outside southern England. Bear in mind they are not pro musicians with the exception of Jordan Averchenko, who teaches guitar, while the others are schoolteachers, university professors or NHS workers and have to plan their gigs carefully around their own work schedule.
Find them on:
Website: https://www.nightish.co.uk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560662745531
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nightish_tribute/
Photo: John Maggs.
