Nightwish Album: “End of an Era [2 CD//DVD]”

I've got to admit that I was a little worried about how this DVD would turn out. "From Wishes to Eternity" is my favorite DVD bar none- could it be matched? Most of the live clips I've seen since FWTE, have been reasonably good, but not spectacular. Big stages have seemed to diminish band interaction and the immediacy & impact of the performances, the band has looked kind of static and audio quality has been nothing great, at best. Then there's the whole Tarja situation and its still lingering aftermath....

Well fellow NW acolytes and all you "civilians" out there, have no fear because this show and DVD/box is another great Nightwish experience. High energy all around, the intensity level stays up throughout the entire show, everyone in the arena seems to be fully engaged in the event, the band's performance is great, the audio is the best yet, and the video work is generally solid too. Realistically, its just about as much as one could hope for as far as capping things off in a positive and energetic way.

So, some details... Its nice and long....18 songs with a concert length of 100 minutes. Despite reputedly having the flu that day, both Marco and Tarja sound fantastic - at the top of their form. Marco adds a lot of onstage chemistry, as you would expect (who was that surly looking guy with a bass on FWTE anyway"). Tarja looks fully engaged and she appears to be enjoying herself. Her whole situation really wasn't much of a factor for me, while watching the show, although it does kind of enter your awareness once the last couple of songs come along. Forget about picking highlights, there are just too many, but if I must I would take "Bless the Child", "Ghost Love Score" - especially when the red confetti falls towards the end, and "Over the Hills". Don't agree? Well, I could just as easily pick Marco's brilliant rendition of "High Hopes", the best performance of "Sleeping Sun" I've seen, and the dynamic blast of "Dark Chest of Wonders". The point is that there is an awful lot to be thrilled with, just as was the case with FWTE.

One thing I really want to make note of is how good the "Century Child" material sounds. Even if you were never crazy about songs like "Phantom of the Opera" or "Ever Dream" chances are you will love them here. This has a lot do with audio clarity, I think. The vocals are much more upfront and present than on the "Century Child" CD and there seems to be less smearing and greater clarity in the overall mix. Even "Bless the Child", which was already one of my very favorite Nightwish songs, sounds better here. It really makes me wish more of "Century Child" had been included; it would have been pure bliss to have "End of All Hope" and "Beauty of the Beast" on there as well. Although this may sound a bit heretical and strange, I'd have to say it could have been better to replace "Kinslayer" and "Wishmaster" with more "Century Child" tracks. We already have great performances of those on FWTE and the "End of an Era" versions don't quite stack up to the FWTE versions.

The DVD would also be an excellent introduction to Nightwish for those unfamiliar with the band, even for non-metal fans. I've used FWTE for this purpose quite a bit. Just the other day, six or eight people in my family - none of whom have any particular inclination towards heavy music - became very interested upon accidentally seeing a couple of clips from FWTE. So now I'm buying that many more copies of FWTE and Wishmaster to get them started. End of an Era would be just as appealing in that way. Although at current prices and availability I may have to hide "End of an Era" and hope a cheaper NTSC version appears someday!

Now naturally there are things that I think could have been done better or differently. There is an awful lot of fast cutting, especially in the beginning of the show. There are a lot of nice camera angles, moving pan/zoom shots and so on, but it seems like there are so many cuts that the pacing is too fast - it can actually feel a little disorienting at first. It does seem like less of an issue upon repeat viewings, maybe that's the intention. I thought the added visual effects were unnecessary - they don't mesh as well as with the quasi high-def feel of "End of an Era" as they did with the video on FWTE . At times the add-ons were pretty distracting: superimposed flames during parts of "Ghost Love Score" - please - isn't it powerful enough already? Cheesy! And who are those crying girls anyway? With 12,000+ people present, let's see more variety in audience shots. There are other things that could be argued, but really there's nothing seriously amiss here - all of these issues are mainly in the realm of fun fan debate.

Remember that this is strictly PAL video at this point in time; it may not work in your Region 1 DVD player. Even certain of my players that accept other PAL DVDs won't play this one. It is fine, though, in any player I tried that specifically accepted PAL and it is fine in any PC or Mac that I tried it on. Some may notice sync issues with this DVD; it actually looked more noticeable to me than on FWTE. That's if its really there at all - sometimes I wonder if I'm really seeing it or not. I have noticed the same phenomenon on the Therion DVD that just came out; it makes wonder if this has to do with PAL to NTSC conversion artifacts or if there's some sort of framing glitch when certain devices play back PAL video.

Anyway, I'm really pleased with "End of an Era" and extremely grateful to Tuomas and all for producing another masterful and memorable Nightwish treasure. I guess I have two favorite DVDs now; here's hoping the era to come matches up to the past and that I can up that number in a few years time.....

This is a fantastic, wonderful concert as others have mentioned. I won't spend a lot of time on that except to agree with most of the comments about the performance. Never having had the chance to see Tarja perform, it was great to be able to watch this.

That said, I was quite disappointed by this DVD technically. I can't believe that, given the year and what this is, the "end of an era" document that this represents, that more care was not taken to have this DVD meet a better standard. 1) The DVD is letterboxed and not anamorphic (if you have a widescreen TV, it still shows as letterboxed instead of filling the screen - that means quality is lost), and 2) the sound is available in only Dolby Digital, not a higher quality version. I can't help but contrast this to Within Temptation's "Black Symphony" DVD which I bought simultaneous to this - it has a beautifully shot widescreen presentation, and DTS 96/24 sound which on a quality audio system is much better than Dolby Digital. I haven't seen any comments about this for End Of An Era so wanted to mention it. I really wish a better effort had been made technically for this otherwise wonderful document of a special event.