I thought that was really good. I'm glad I sprang for the second show and wish I'd gone for both. Hopefully this will see the light of day as a Blu-Ray release or something. It seems like they put a lot of work and money into the visual presentation, and while the CGI wasn't Hollywood-quality, it generally looked quite nice and definitely not low-rent. The aesthetic was very Nightwish—very Tuomas, really. So hopefully they didn't put in all that investment for a one-off that they intend to just stick in a drawer, and these shows see a wider release.
I was really skeptical of the idea of not replacing Marco's voice. I was worried it would require them to severely limit future setlists. While I still think it would be a good idea to at least bring along a guest singer on tour (kind of like a gender-swapped version of what Kamelot does), I'm now sold on them being able to do a standard setlist with the lineup they have now.
Troy put in a really valiant effort to cover some of Marco's parts. I noticed this time that he's really wearing a lot of hats. He plays all of his wind instruments, plus he's a second guitarist, and now he's moving from doing maybe 5% of the vocal parts to doing a solid 15%, depending on the setlist. He did miss one cue singing—the return from the instrumental break in I Want My Tears Back—but he did a good job. I heard more power from his voice than I've ever heard before.
But as valiant as Troy is, this whole not replacing Marco as a vocalist thing works only because they have just about the current best singer in rock music. In retrospect, I don't know why I doubted that Floor could be two singers in one show—I've heard Ghost Love Floor before, I should know better than to doubt her. The hardest Marco parts work because of her. Planet Hell comes off practically like it was written for her, and The Greatest Show on Earth works better than I thought. Ever Dream and I Want My Tears Back are missing some juice, but not as much as I expected. I Want My Tears Back now has a totally different vibe from the album version, where Anette sings the soft, fragile chorus and Marco comes in with a lot of power—now we begin with Floor's powerful chorus and switch to Troy's more fragile voice.
Cram summed up the setlist changes, but just to put the full set here, night two was:
1. Noise
2. Planet Hell
3. Alpenglow
4. Élan
5. Storytime
6. How's the Heart?
7. Harvest
8. Dark Chest of Wonders
9. I Want My Tears Back
10. Ever Dream
11. Nemo
12. Sleeping Sun
13. Pan
14. Last Ride of the Day
15. Ghost Love Score
16. The Greatest Show on Earth
I think I like this setlist a little better, though I'm sad I missed the first. In particular, I'd like to hear Floor solo 7 Days to the Wolves. And She is My Sin and Bless the Child are absolutely always welcome. But Ever Dream/Dark Chest of Wonders/Sleeping Sun is a nearly unbeatable trio.
The one thing that disappointed me is that they didn't talk at all between songs. I know it's probably awkward doing these shows with no audience (there were times when it didn't seem like Floor quite knew what to do, and it took a while and an Emppu for the band to start moving around and interacting with each other). But I would have liked them to at least introduce the new bassist. If you watched this thing and you didn't know the history of the band, you'd think he'd always been there.
Edit: One other thing I realized: When I first became a fan of the band, the newest album was Imaginaerum, which turns 10 this year. Only two full members of the Imaginaerum lineup are still in the band. Two and a half if you count Troy, who guested on half of the songs on that album. Anette, Marco, Jukka—all gone. Just Tuomas and Emppu remain.