In case you're curious, the effect that Troy is using in the first movement to make the guitar sound like a cello is called an E-Bow. It's battery-powered, held in the picking hand, over the strings, and generates an electro-magnetic field that allows the string to sustain until the e-bow is moved, or the string is muted. They are a blast to play through a loud amp.
Thank you for the information! 😀 I have always thought that it was Emppu playing the intro but now I know it's Troy. There's always something new to learn about Nightwish.
The angle of Tuomas's keyboard is to take away the strain on fingers and wrists, plus the audience gets to see what the master is up to. And of course: Floor: "Enter Luca" Marko: "Enter Ionia" Emppu: "Enter Sandman"
And at least Jens Johansson from Stratovarius did it before Janne, probably someone else as well. It's hard to find video evidence of the live gigs in the 90´s, because most of the video quality is so bad, but I at least found one Bodom video from 1998 where Janne played with keybooard set level and also found one Stratovarius video from 1997 where Jens plays with tilted keyboard. Some Stratovarius videos from 1996 had Jens playing with level keyboard as well, so the change had to have happened sometime around 1996-1997. I've seen both bands first live around 98-99, but can't remember details that far back...
The Devonian age was from around 360 to 420 million years ago, when animal life only existed in the sea, with the land having only plant life. It was followed by the Carboniferous period, when animals made their way to land. WE WERE HERE! 🌎
During the Devonian period there had been first woods on land, also several insects and first amphibians. During the Carboniferous period there had been first reptiles and insects and arachnids grew very big.
Great reaction . You are the first reactor who recognizes the pipes and i do watch a lot of Nightwish reactions . Shout out to you Ken 👍I was there in London december 2015 and it was another epic show of them 🤘
in case you dont know the voice from the intro and outro it is Richard Dawkins i also love that you can hear a beautiful representation of musical history in 30 seconds. It begins with a harpsichord playing Bach's Minuet in G, followed by the voices of Chrismas Carolers singing a snippet that's reminiscent of Carol of the Bells to represent the Classical Music of the 18-1900s; it then moves to mid-20th century american Country Music with a short snippet of a banjo diddy ; the early 21st century follows afterwards with a riff from Metallica's "Enter Sandman" to represent the Golden Age of Classic Metal; it then ends with the drumkit briefly switching from acoustic to digital as it plays an EDM style beat to represent Club Music and the modern era.
Рік тому+11
The song is definitely about the creation of Earth and evolving to us humans and beyond.
Ken, it's worth checking out the Tampere version too in your free time when you have a chance. There's some distinct differences in that show, especially how they begin the track.
Nightwish. They gotta be one of the few titans of music. They surely create music as big as if it were for the titans. I must have seen this performance several hundreds of times. but that last part from "We were here" to the Dawkins finale blows me away every single time. Literally. For the duration of it, I stop existing in human form and morph into a bunch of chills and watery eyes.
My dear friend, this is why she is who she is! The Goddess of "metal" and one of the vest vocalists on this planet. One of the very best singers I've heard in my 70+ years. Thanks for a wonderful reaction. TC
Great reaction Ken! Everything about this song is brilliant. The concept, arrangement, lighting, cinematography, instruments and of course Floor and Marco’s voices are all epic. 🤘🔥🤯
Great reaction again and with your special sense of humor! You are the first reactor that immediately recognizes the uillean pipes and can say something sensible about them😮. Probably by now you will know that the strange tool Troy is using is called an ebow. BTW I recently enjoyed again watching your reaction on “Strange Machines” by The Gathering on Pinkpop❤ BTW: Merry Christmas 😂😂
NightWish Army Wisconsin Chapter here. Only a Genius like Toumas could create a musical masterpiece defining the creation of our Universe all the way to the creation Music and People. This musical composition belongs in a museum! What a performance by the band as well as our Valkyrie Queen, Floor Jansen. Great reaction! ❤🤘
Hi Ken, it is so great to see that even on the release day of this reaction video in May 2023, you are still surrounded by all the Christmas decorations. Beautiful!
I really love (and prefer) this version of The Greatest Show on Earth - in part because that opening E-bow part is just so glorious and other-worldly and fascinating. Troy's skills as a multi-instrumentalist are just so amazing, such a great bloke. I also like that the auditorium is pitch dark so you get the full effect of the lights, pyro, and especially the digital screens. At the opening, we are tumbling through space against a starfield, alone in the dark. That sense makes the later "We Were Here" feel more impactful and defiant. We really are so tiny in the great Universal scheme of things that our ability to even formulate that thought and express it is completely mindblowing.
Greetings from New Zealand Ken :) Always enjoy your knowledgeable and very engaging reactions to Nightwish :) Floor sounds very operatic in the opening, not something you hear very often in the Nightwish tracks. Love to hear more of it. You'll hear more of that beautiful warm, rich and fine operatic sound in the masterpiece - Shoemaker. Magnificent. That is all Floor - I would say she is a coloratura soprano; just imagine if she had chosen full opera, she would be outstandingly memorable.
Floor is famously accurate in her singing: dead-on, every note. If she's the slightest bit sharp or flat, it's because she wants to be. As for her ability to raise goosebumps - I don't think science has an answer for that.
I also love the sound of the uilleann pipes. Troy has spoken about the difficulty of keep the pipes in tune. Floor is all of the above as you stated. Truly a talent from another world. FloorWorld!
Came home, turned on UA-cam, saw this & knew what I was going to watch first today! This has always been such an emotional song for me. If I ever saw this live, I would just start bawling as soon as the pipes played. It's such an incredibly emotional and perfect musical moment, especially in the context of the grand epic nature of the song and the flow of emotions the score is already eliciting. I have a personal connection to the song that I treasure. Keats is in my family tree, so the honor of hearing his name mentioned in one of the greatest songs ever written gives me a warm feeling every time. Also, I don't know if someone else mentioned this, but Emppu snuck a tiny snippet of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" in there. Brilliant.
Yeah, it’s all about evolution of earth and then there’s a small part in there if you pay attention that is like the evolution of music as well, which is pretty outstanding. But I also have to say I love the way floors does the library it’s so great.
You seem to love the pipes and as such I would suggest digging into the solo work of Nightwish’s piper Troy Donockley. He has done a lot of session work, has been part of the celtic progband Iona, and has released three very unique solo albums that mix classical, folk and prog masterfully. He plays loads of instruments including pipes, whistles, guitars, keyboards, percussion.
@Milton Hunter I do agree w you! Troy doesn't have Marko's training or talent...but he's still a magical creature, and his vocals have gotten much stronger over this past year, touring!
Troy is awesome, especially acoustic with Floor, but damn do I miss Marco. Floor and Marco’s voices fit together so well, across all the songs they’ve done. Ever Dream without him is just not the same.
You´re such a sympathic guy reviewing such a sympathic band :) Nightwish is propably the best band of our times, speaking about those philosopical meanings of their lyrics and the arrangements of their music!
The keyboard angle comes from research decades ago on the ergo of computer keyboards. The whole of the input human/tech interaction was studied to reduce the exploding RSI problem that had emerged. One of the things that was found was that the angle between the keyboard plane and the hand/forearm was crucial in preventing damage. So when you stand at a keyboard the keyboard the keyboard plane has to be angled to relieve the wrist pressure. Music keyboard players adopted it to help with the RSI problems they were having. You will notice the higher keyboard is angled more flat. The two planes are angled to the players elbow.
Oh thanks ! I really believed you've already listened to this one amongst Nighwish reactions on your channel, so that is a great beautiful surprise to hear it, and have your opinion on this particuliar one, so well built and composed, around this so fabulous thema
A truly exceptional reaction! Sorceress pretty much sums up Floor's, well, everything 😁 Troy is the new multi-instrumentalist in the band. He specializes in all of the Celtic instruments like pipes, whistles and bouzouki. That was him during the opening playing his guitar with an E-bow.
Another great reaction! Can't ever go wrong with Nightwish and Floor. If you do some more Dio for your metal month, I highly recommend Dio's reunion with black Sabbath under the heaven and hell name. Any song from their Wacken open air 2009 show. See 4 guys in their 60's absolutely kill it. It is also less than a year before Dio's death, and at that point he was in a lot of pain from his cancer. It's an amazing performance that will stack up against any concert.
Yeah Troy's playing an ebow. Clearly well named, it keeps all the strings vibrating giving the feeling of a cello. I don't play guitar anymore, I never was beyond having fun, but I got my hands on one & it was really good fun! You're the first person to know what the pipes are so mad props! Great reaction!
It’s just a masterpiece ❣️ Nice to see you doing Nightwish again. You probably know Floor released a solo album called ‘Paragon’? Absolutely worth reacting to as well. 🙋🏼♀️
Its her voice, not a technicality. And this is the story of the birth of our planet. Sometimes it is better to inform yourself beforehand. Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱
To sing with Floor would be a dream and Henk Poort got to live that dream singing The Phantom of the Opera, with Floor, on an episode of Beste Zangers as well as in concert with Nightwish. We only ask that you spread the word about this amazing group, who is not only a band, They. Are. Family. Goodness knows they have the chemistry when you consider how much they love working together every time they put their proverbial brush to canvas.
Not to forget that Floor decided to sing after seeing Henk Poort long time ago as he was the Phantom. Floor is in full fangirl mode when meeting Hank. He was and is her idol.
excellent reaction, thanks from Colorado. based on Richard Dawkins book by the same name. at the Wembley concert he came on stage to say humanities euilogy
Hello, regarding the beginning, the sound of the cello is made on a guitar and with the E-Bow accessory which makes the strings vibrate in order to have infinite sustain among other things. sorry for my bad english google. 😉🎸
"Devonian Sea" references the Devonian Period of Earth when when plant life evolved on land and marine life evolved in the oceans. "LUCA" is an acronym for "Last Universal Common Ancestor", the most recent known cellular organism all life on Earth share decent with.
Good stuff Ken, excellent. I'm glad you did get to hear Prof. Dawkins' closing words from Charles Darwin. Yep, it's a musical journey through the scientific history of this planet, only Holopainen could likely do that. I had a go at translating Tuomas' lyrics from the near identical Tampere version, please excuse me filling your comments as I have to reply to myself twice to get into the YT comment allowance !! (Spoken parts are in quotations) [Part 1: Four Point Six] (4.6 billion years ago) Archaean horizon (part of the Precambrian period, in which there was no life on the earth. Earth's history is divided into four principal Eons: the Hadean, the Archean, Proterozoic, and the Phanerozoic. The Hadean is the Eon during which the Earth and Moon formed; in the Archaean, primordial life appeared. ) The first sunrise On a pristine gaea (Greek personification of the Earth as a goddess) Opus perfectum (the perfect work, the perfect creation, a masterpiece) Somewhere there, us sleeping (the DNA and carbon for life was in the space dust) "After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble and enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?" (Dawkins refers to the birth of the earth as a planet and mankind's brief geologic time on earth to understand how we came to be here at all) [Part 2: Life] The cosmic law of gravity Pulled the newborns around a fire (Planetary gravity aligning the solar system around the sun) A careless cold infinity in every vast direction (space) Lonely farer in the Goldilocks zone (The earth moving on its own in the exact place for life to thrive - mother bear’s porridge was just right for Goldilocks) She has a tale to tell From the stellar nursery into a carbon feast (the condensing big bang dust clouds form into planets and the earth; all life is carbon based) Enter LUCA (Last universal common ancestor - a simple life form that all life carries a genetic marker for, LUCA was not the first living organism but the sole survivor of previous types) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor The tapestry of chemistry (The periodic table of the elements and combinations) There's a writing in the garden (DNA and the garden, earth) Leading us to the mother of all (the trail to our beginnings) We are one (having a common DNA marker and we are all made from the galactic space dust and condensing gas. All the material from the big bang is still here, state might have changed for some things, but it is here.) We are a universe (This is the natural conclusion to draw from the fact that life shares common origin, that all life is built with the same blocks, and that all life on Earth is interdependent (gaia hypothesis). The multiplicity of beings on Earth are one, just as the cells in a body are one. Lately it has been shown that we are indeed made of star dust material from the birth of our universe) Forebears of what will be Scions of the Devonian sea (419.2 to 358.9 million years ago from rocks found in Devon England, scion is a young shoot of a plant, the land grew plants and the multitude of fishes started to come ashore and walk on fins briefly) Aeons pass Writing the tale of us all (The DNA and evolution branching out into other forms) A day-to-day new opening (The continuity of evolution) For the greatest show on Earth (a poetic reference to life developing and evolving)
#2 Ion channels welcoming the outside world (Google Ion channels, protein molecules that span across the cell membrane allowing the passage of ions from one side of the membrane to the other. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_channel ) To the stuff of stars (the original star dust everything came from and still is.) Bedding the tree of a biological holy (the start of the tree of life) Enter life The tapestry of chemistry There's a writing in the garden Leading us to the mother of all (The periodic table of elements does look like a sort of patchwork tapestry, but this can go further. The historical function of tapestries was as "nomadic murals," pictographical histories which moving people could pack up and revisit wherever they went. The "writing in the garden," in nature, is not only the stone murals left by dead animals in the form of fossils, but is also this chemical writing that encodes the relatively nomadic DNA molecule with the instructions for life. The scientific investigation of this information leads us back to LUCA) We are one We are a universe Forebears of what will be Scions of the Devonian sea Aeons pass Writing the tale of us all A day-to-day new opening For the greatest show on Earth We are here to care for the garden The wonder of birth (the odds of us being born at all is 400 trillion to one) Of every form most beautiful Every form most beautiful (Forms Most Beautiful - Charles Darwin) We are one We are a universe Forebears of what will be Scions of the Devonian sea Aeons pass writing the tale of us all A day-to-day new opening For the greatest show on Earth [Part 3: The Toolmaker] After a billion years The show is still here Not a single one of your fathers died young (our prehistoric fathers must have been old enough to breed or we would not be here at all) The handy travellers (the first tool makers) Out of Africa (from whence we all came) Little Lucy of the Afar (Lucy was discovered at Afar in Ethiopia, an upright hominin, so called because the Beatles Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was being played at the time, Lucy is considered to be the missing link from apes to humans and believed to be about 13yo at the time of death. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus))
#3 Gave birth to fantasy To idolatry To self-destructive weaponry Enter the God of gaps (God of the gaps is a theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence. The term "gaps" was initially used by Christian theologians not to discredit theism but rather to point out the fallacy of relying on teleological arguments for God's existence) Deep within the past Atavistic dread of the hunted (relating to or characterized by reversion to something ancient or ancestral) Enter Ionia, the cradle of thought (Ionia is accepted as the cradle of thought and philosophy) The architecture of understanding The human lust to feel so exceptional To rule the Earth Hunger for shiny rocks (Diamonds being suggested) For giant mushroom clouds The will to do just as you'd be done by (A reference to Mutually Assured Destruction) Enter history, the grand finale (when we will become extinct too) Enter ratkind (this suggests after mankind has perished/killed itself, the rats will become dominant and sentient life, then they hypothesise how we became extinct. It is a fact that the first life forms returning to nuclear test sites are rats living in radiation levels lethal to us, this hypothesis is from Dawkins also.) Man, he took his time in the sun (us now) Had a dream to understand A single grain of sand He gave birth to poetry But one day'll cease to be Greet the last light of the library (the cessation of mankind and the ending of our recorded knowledge) Man, he took his time in the sun (us now) Had a dream to understand A single grain of sand (in this second iteration, the first two bars of Metallica “Enter the Sandman” are played as a nod to them, one of the first HM bands to work with an orchestra and the sand reference. Metallica is rather a favourite of Tuomas too as they set him off on a musical path. There are several Easter eggs in this too with some phrases from classical and pop music too. Someone said, and I take no credit for this analysis, the little hidden melody bits were some African tribal drumming, a medieval hymn (Dies Irae), Johan Sebastian Bach (Christian Petzold) - Minuet in G major and Toccata & Fugue in D minor, American banjo music, Metallica - Enter Sandman and the bassline from Nightwish - I Wish I Had An Angel. Also Megadeth - Symphony of Destruction.) He gave birth to poetry But one day'll cease to be Greet the last light of the library Man, he took his time in the sun Had a dream to understand A single grain of sand He gave birth to poetry But one day'll cease to be Greet the last light of the library (There will be a human extinction event, no if's, just when. The sun is getting bigger by capturing space hydrogen, space is not exactly empty, it will eventually turn the planet to sand and boil the seas, we will be long gone by then, or on a different planet. It will become a red giant and swallow Mercury, Venus and the Earth. None of us need worry presently, it's a very long way off, a very long way off being about 5 billion years. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Life_phases) We were here! We were here! We were here! We were here! (We have always been here, we're made of the space dust and condensing gasses from the big bang, everything before us is still here in a different state and everybody and everything to come is here, as yet un-assembled, we are a universe as the atoms and molecules that make us and we have come from a universe.) [Part 4: The Understanding] (From Richard Dawkins) "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of those stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred" [Part 5: Sea-Worn Driftwood] (original text from Charles Darwin read by Dawkins) "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
LUCA, last universal commun ancester. LUCY, the oldest human rest found untill today. She was found by a paleontologist. At this moment he was listening "Lucy in the sky with diamonds'. From The Beatles
That was awesome, and well worth the wait (even if I didn't know I was waiting). Probably a long shot, given the time commitment, but I'd love to see you react to the Tampere version too.
Nightwish Army south Brittany France reporting. Yes 20 mins, Toumas cut it right down. No, that's Troy with an E-bow. That whoosh that you heard was the history of music flying over your head.
As I composed this comment, I was thinking of how, just a few seconds ago while listen to Troy playing the uileann pipes, how that part was giving me goosebumps up and down my arms and legs. That aside, having listened to this performance at Wembly, do yourself a favor and look up the performance at Ratina Stadium in Tampere, Finland. Tuomas used fireworks, in the song's intro, not only for putting on a show but also as a percussive element.
I do enjoyed hearing you say you enjoying the symphonic of it and maybe the metal won't come al the while you where right there, like walking towards a cliff without knowing there is a cliff 😂 nice tree btw 😉
Most Singers sing what they can. Floor sings what she wants.
And Marko can sing too like those high harmonies with Floor here, but you should hear him sing Queen, Prince or Coolio
She's great, right? 😊 I hate that I missed the last time they came to LA waaaay back in the day. Some day though. Someday
Well said, and she commands the stage I mean that stage presence is unbelievable
@@Suicideshakes I hope you see them soon. I've seen them combined about 10 times. All but 2 in Finland ,well 1 was the NW cruise
And one person said in the past. On a Nightwish concert you don՝t hit the floor. The FLOOR hits you ❤
That's her voice . I've seen them live 15 times and she's always on point.
Seen here i various concerts, with i.e. epica. I ve NEVER heard her miss a note. She's just insanely good
In case you're curious, the effect that Troy is using in the first movement to make the guitar sound like a cello is called an E-Bow. It's battery-powered, held in the picking hand, over the strings, and generates an electro-magnetic field that allows the string to sustain until the e-bow is moved, or the string is muted. They are a blast to play through a loud amp.
Thank you for the information! 😀 I have always thought that it was Emppu playing the intro but now I know it's Troy. There's always something new to learn about Nightwish.
LUCA is an acronym meaning "last universal common ancestor"
[edit]
It's not just Marco harmonising with Floor, Troy Donockley also joins in.
The angle of Tuomas's keyboard is to take away the strain on fingers and wrists, plus the audience gets to see what the master is up to. And of course:
Floor: "Enter Luca"
Marko: "Enter Ionia"
Emppu: "Enter Sandman"
yup, before Tuomas, Janne from Children of Bodom & Warmen did that. A lot more ergonomic when playing standing up, and gives the crowd some visuals.
And at least Jens Johansson from Stratovarius did it before Janne, probably someone else as well. It's hard to find video evidence of the live gigs in the 90´s, because most of the video quality is so bad, but I at least found one Bodom video from 1998 where Janne played with keybooard set level and also found one Stratovarius video from 1997 where Jens plays with tilted keyboard. Some Stratovarius videos from 1996 had Jens playing with level keyboard as well, so the change had to have happened sometime around 1996-1997. I've seen both bands first live around 98-99, but can't remember details that far back...
well of course Jens did! :D
@@tubelious yeah, i can imagine thats probably not the only thing Jens did first :)
Also
Floor: enter life
Floor: (at the end): enter ratkind
"enter humanity, the destroyers!" was such a bang on call! impressive 🤘
The Devonian age was from around 360 to 420 million years ago, when animal life only existed in the sea, with the land having only plant life. It was followed by the Carboniferous period, when animals made their way to land. WE WERE HERE! 🌎
During the Devonian period there had been first woods on land, also several insects and first amphibians. During the Carboniferous period there had been first reptiles and insects and arachnids grew very big.
Um ok
Great reaction . You are the first reactor who recognizes the pipes and i do watch a lot of Nightwish reactions . Shout out to you Ken 👍I was there in London december 2015 and it was another epic show of them 🤘
Yes! 😄 I love when someone gets the name of the pipes correct.
'Enter humanity, the destroyer.' Knowing what came next, that gave me goosebumps! :o
Tapestry of chemistry = The periodic table
The writing in the garden = The three of DNA.
Just the best band ever.
in case you dont know the voice from the intro and outro it is Richard Dawkins
i also love that you can hear a beautiful representation of musical history in 30 seconds.
It begins with a harpsichord playing Bach's Minuet in G, followed by the voices of Chrismas Carolers singing a snippet that's reminiscent of Carol of the Bells to represent the Classical Music of the 18-1900s; it then moves to mid-20th century american Country Music with a short snippet of a banjo diddy ; the early 21st century follows afterwards with a riff from Metallica's "Enter Sandman" to represent the Golden Age of Classic Metal; it then ends with the drumkit briefly switching from acoustic to digital as it plays an EDM style beat to represent Club Music and the modern era.
The song is definitely about the creation of Earth and evolving to us humans and beyond.
Ken, it's worth checking out the Tampere version too in your free time when you have a chance. There's some distinct differences in that show, especially how they begin the track.
Yeah, I still prefer the Tampere version, this is good too though.
Nightwish. They gotta be one of the few titans of music. They surely create music as big as if it were for the titans.
I must have seen this performance several hundreds of times. but that last part from "We were here" to the Dawkins finale blows me away every single time. Literally. For the duration of it, I stop existing in human form and morph into a bunch of chills and watery eyes.
The line 'we were here ' surprisingly eased my climate angst.
You can say whatever you want about this band, but this definitely IS the greatest show on earth, period.🤩
My dear friend, this is why she is who she is! The Goddess of "metal" and one of the vest vocalists on this planet. One of the very best singers I've heard in my 70+ years. Thanks for a wonderful reaction. TC
Ditto
@@peterpritzl3354 I concur.
(Except it's 77 years here. . . . . .)
Tuomas is such a genius!
i concur
I concur.
I think that he is a genius and the Nightwish history is somehow a evidence that Dawkins' theory is right
Great reaction Ken! Everything about this song is brilliant. The concept, arrangement, lighting, cinematography, instruments and of course Floor and Marco’s voices are all epic. 🤘🔥🤯
Great stuff man. I loved right when you said you were looking for the metal side to kick in and then Bam!! 🤣🤣
Right? I was LOLing and yelling at the screen, "As soon as you hit the spacebar, it's gonna hit you in the nuts!" It had me all sorts of wound up. 😂
Excellent, was hoping for more Nightwish!
Has it been so long since a Ken Lavigne NW reaction? How ever long it's been, great to see a new (old) reaction from you, sir!
Funny how the sea of outstretched arms in the audience resembled the waving sea anemones shown behind the band
Haha, she's all of them, and much more! ⛄❄👍
Great reaction again and with your special sense of humor! You are the first reactor that immediately recognizes the uillean pipes and can say something sensible about them😮. Probably by now you will know that the strange tool Troy is using is called an ebow. BTW I recently enjoyed again watching your reaction on “Strange Machines” by The Gathering on Pinkpop❤
BTW: Merry Christmas 😂😂
NightWish Army Wisconsin Chapter here. Only a Genius like Toumas could create a musical masterpiece defining the creation of our Universe all the way to the creation Music and People. This musical composition belongs in a museum! What a performance by the band as well as our Valkyrie Queen, Floor Jansen. Great reaction! ❤🤘
LUCA=Last Universal Common Ancestor.
I can guarantee that even if we can't keep up, the crowd is doing its best to keep up during the We Were Here moments.
Troy is the multi-instrumentalist in the band!
And a so great addition to the Band
Hi Ken, it is so great to see that even on the release day of this reaction video in May 2023, you are still surrounded by all the Christmas decorations. Beautiful!
WE WERE HERE!!!!!!!
nice reaction , in the beginning Troy was using an E-Bow with his guitar
I really love (and prefer) this version of The Greatest Show on Earth - in part because that opening E-bow part is just so glorious and other-worldly and fascinating. Troy's skills as a multi-instrumentalist are just so amazing, such a great bloke.
I also like that the auditorium is pitch dark so you get the full effect of the lights, pyro, and especially the digital screens. At the opening, we are tumbling through space against a starfield, alone in the dark. That sense makes the later "We Were Here" feel more impactful and defiant. We really are so tiny in the great Universal scheme of things that our ability to even formulate that thought and express it is completely mindblowing.
I agree, superior to the Tampere version IMO.
i prefer the tampere version everybody has his own taste but this is also a great version
To show how different we all are, I HATE the ebow in this version haha. It ruins the beginning of the song for me, tbh.
@@madDdog67 It kinda feels like a distraction.
Floor canta mucho mejor en la otra versión, una pena.
Greetings from New Zealand Ken :) Always enjoy your knowledgeable and very engaging reactions to Nightwish :) Floor sounds very operatic in the opening, not something you hear very often in the Nightwish tracks. Love to hear more of it. You'll hear more of that beautiful warm, rich and fine operatic sound in the masterpiece - Shoemaker. Magnificent. That is all Floor - I would say she is a coloratura soprano; just imagine if she had chosen full opera, she would be outstandingly memorable.
Thats the way the only and truly singer can do with her voice with out using any other thing but their voice.
The final orchestral piece was composed by Tuomas and recorded with a full symphony orchestra.
@17:55 Tuomas- "We need a theremin." Floor- "I am a theremin".
"The first sunrise." just gets my head going. I did wonder where this reaction was, glad to see it on a sunny friday afternoon with some 🍺
Great to see you lighting up when you hear Troy start his Uillean pipes!
Floor is famously accurate in her singing: dead-on, every note. If she's the slightest bit sharp or flat, it's because she wants to be.
As for her ability to raise goosebumps - I don't think science has an answer for that.
I also love the sound of the uilleann pipes. Troy has spoken about the difficulty of keep the pipes in tune. Floor is all of the above as you stated. Truly a talent from another world. FloorWorld!
Came home, turned on UA-cam, saw this & knew what I was going to watch first today!
This has always been such an emotional song for me. If I ever saw this live, I would just start bawling as soon as the pipes played. It's such an incredibly emotional and perfect musical moment, especially in the context of the grand epic nature of the song and the flow of emotions the score is already eliciting.
I have a personal connection to the song that I treasure. Keats is in my family tree, so the honor of hearing his name mentioned in one of the greatest songs ever written gives me a warm feeling every time.
Also, I don't know if someone else mentioned this, but Emppu snuck a tiny snippet of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" in there. Brilliant.
Take a quick look at the beginning from the Tempere version.. Whoaa...
Yeah, it’s all about evolution of earth and then there’s a small part in there if you pay attention that is like the evolution of music as well, which is pretty outstanding. But I also have to say I love the way floors does the library it’s so great.
Thank you for posting!
Forever grateful to have experienced this live.
7:20 chuckled a bit at "we have not even reached the metal part yet" and then a random bagpipe starts blasting
Frickin love Ken. He's joy personified.
👏👏👏👏👏 Thank you!
LUCA: the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all current life on earth.
You seem to love the pipes and as such I would suggest digging into the solo work of Nightwish’s piper Troy Donockley. He has done a lot of session work, has been part of the celtic progband Iona, and has released three very unique solo albums that mix classical, folk and prog masterfully. He plays loads of instruments including pipes, whistles, guitars, keyboards, percussion.
Marco and Floor were just magic together. Bands just not the same without him
You are right. Now, Floor is the female Freddie Mercury of Nightwish
All of the harmonies were 3-part...as Troy sang w them!
@@amygoodson-catlady True, but he is the lessor voice IMO. He can't sing Marcos parts.
@Milton Hunter I do agree w you! Troy doesn't have Marko's training or talent...but he's still a magical creature, and his vocals have gotten much stronger over this past year, touring!
Troy is awesome, especially acoustic with Floor, but damn do I miss Marco. Floor and Marco’s voices fit together so well, across all the songs they’ve done. Ever Dream without him is just not the same.
You´re such a sympathic guy reviewing such a sympathic band :) Nightwish is propably the best band of our times, speaking about those philosopical meanings of their lyrics and the arrangements of their music!
Merry month of metal 😊
Devonian Sea is where life as we know it started. LUKA - Last Universal Common Ancestor, is the start of the tree of life.
The maestro and the composer behind this is on the keyboard '' tuomas Holopainen'' he writes and composes the songs
The keyboard angle comes from research decades ago on the ergo of computer keyboards. The whole of the input human/tech interaction was studied to reduce the exploding RSI problem that had emerged. One of the things that was found was that the angle between the keyboard plane and the hand/forearm was crucial in preventing damage. So when you stand at a keyboard the keyboard the keyboard plane has to be angled to relieve the wrist pressure. Music keyboard players adopted it to help with the RSI problems they were having. You will notice the higher keyboard is angled more flat. The two planes are angled to the players elbow.
Merry Christmas. 😉😄
Oh thanks ! I really believed you've already listened to this one amongst Nighwish reactions on your channel, so that is a great beautiful surprise to hear it, and have your opinion on this particuliar one, so well built and composed, around this so fabulous thema
Im happy at some point you could see the message despite it was hard for you.
I'm grateful for your reaction
A truly exceptional reaction! Sorceress pretty much sums up Floor's, well, everything 😁 Troy is the new multi-instrumentalist in the band. He specializes in all of the Celtic instruments like pipes, whistles and bouzouki. That was him during the opening playing his guitar with an E-bow.
"New" 😄
@@mattitu He just seems new to me. I even think of Kai as the new drummer and Floor as the new singer. That happens when you get old 🤣
Another great reaction! Can't ever go wrong with Nightwish and Floor. If you do some more Dio for your metal month, I highly recommend Dio's reunion with black Sabbath under the heaven and hell name. Any song from their Wacken open air 2009 show. See 4 guys in their 60's absolutely kill it. It is also less than a year before Dio's death, and at that point he was in a lot of pain from his cancer. It's an amazing performance that will stack up against any concert.
Heaven and hell is my fave black Sabbath album... I'm also a massive Ozzy fan..but heaven and Hell album is a master class
Yeah Troy's playing an ebow. Clearly well named, it keeps all the strings vibrating giving the feeling of a cello. I don't play guitar anymore, I never was beyond having fun, but I got my hands on one & it was really good fun!
You're the first person to know what the pipes are so mad props!
Great reaction!
The first part was Troy on guitar with an Ebow. A magnetic hand device that vibrates metal strings on any instrument.
"We haven't really hit the metal part yet" Your timing was perfect.
ok I see this review for the umpteenth time and more and more I find it great, detailed, just great, noticing such details...
It’s just a masterpiece ❣️
Nice to see you doing Nightwish again.
You probably know Floor released a solo album called ‘Paragon’?
Absolutely worth reacting to as well. 🙋🏼♀️
She’s everything
Its her voice, not a technicality. And this is the story of the birth of our planet. Sometimes it is better to inform yourself beforehand. Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱
Ah, the comment about no metal at 8:41 could not have been better timed.
Floor has even better joke when she calls their song Shoemaker a "most sing-along" piece and asks the audience to follow.
Troy said ..."to start learning to play this, you have to be a little bit insane!"
At last somebody who knows about the uileann pipes! 🤘
To sing with Floor would be a dream and Henk Poort got to live that dream singing The Phantom of the Opera, with Floor, on an episode of Beste Zangers as well as in concert with Nightwish.
We only ask that you spread the word about this amazing group, who is not only a band, They. Are. Family. Goodness knows they have the chemistry when you consider how much they love working together every time they put their proverbial brush to canvas.
Not to forget that Floor decided to sing after seeing Henk Poort long time ago as he was the Phantom. Floor is in full fangirl mode when meeting Hank. He was and is her idol.
excellent reaction, thanks from Colorado. based on Richard Dawkins book by the same name. at the Wembley concert he came on stage to say humanities euilogy
Hello, regarding the beginning, the sound of the cello is made on a guitar and with the E-Bow accessory which makes the strings vibrate in order to have infinite sustain among other things. sorry for my bad english google. 😉🎸
Moar Nightwish! MORE! :D
"Devonian Sea" references the Devonian Period of Earth when when plant life evolved on land and marine life evolved in the oceans. "LUCA" is an acronym for "Last Universal Common Ancestor", the most recent known cellular organism all life on Earth share decent with.
More Nightwish plz Ken , just love ur reactions to all ur content 🤘🏼🖤🤘🏼🖤
What the guitarist is using in the intro is called an Ebow. It uses an magnetic field to vibrate the strings so it sustains forever
Good stuff Ken, excellent. I'm glad you did get to hear Prof. Dawkins' closing words from Charles Darwin. Yep, it's a musical journey through the scientific history of this planet, only Holopainen could likely do that. I had a go at translating Tuomas' lyrics from the near identical Tampere version, please excuse me filling your comments as I have to reply to myself twice to get into the YT comment allowance !!
(Spoken parts are in quotations)
[Part 1: Four Point Six] (4.6 billion years ago)
Archaean horizon
(part of the Precambrian period, in which there was no life on the earth. Earth's history is divided into four principal Eons: the Hadean, the Archean, Proterozoic, and the Phanerozoic. The Hadean is the Eon during which the Earth and Moon formed; in the Archaean, primordial life appeared. )
The first sunrise
On a pristine gaea
(Greek personification of the Earth as a goddess)
Opus perfectum
(the perfect work, the perfect creation, a masterpiece)
Somewhere there, us sleeping
(the DNA and carbon for life was in the space dust)
"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life.
Within decades we must close our eyes again.
Isn't it a noble and enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?"
(Dawkins refers to the birth of the earth as a planet and mankind's brief geologic time on earth to understand how we came to be here at all)
[Part 2: Life]
The cosmic law of gravity
Pulled the newborns around a fire
(Planetary gravity aligning the solar system around the sun)
A careless cold infinity in every vast direction (space)
Lonely farer in the Goldilocks zone
(The earth moving on its own in the exact place for life to thrive - mother bear’s porridge was just right for Goldilocks)
She has a tale to tell
From the stellar nursery into a carbon feast
(the condensing big bang dust clouds form into planets and the earth; all life is carbon based)
Enter LUCA
(Last universal common ancestor - a simple life form that all life carries a genetic marker for, LUCA was not the first living organism but the sole survivor of previous types)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor
The tapestry of chemistry
(The periodic table of the elements and combinations)
There's a writing in the garden
(DNA and the garden, earth)
Leading us to the mother of all
(the trail to our beginnings)
We are one
(having a common DNA marker and we are all made from the galactic space dust and condensing gas. All the material from the big bang is still here, state might have changed for some things, but it is here.)
We are a universe
(This is the natural conclusion to draw from the fact that life shares common origin, that all life is built with the same blocks, and that all life on Earth is interdependent (gaia hypothesis). The multiplicity of beings on Earth are one, just as the cells in a body are one. Lately it has been shown that we are indeed made of star dust material from the birth of our universe)
Forebears of what will be
Scions of the Devonian sea
(419.2 to 358.9 million years ago from rocks found in Devon England, scion is a young shoot of a plant, the land grew plants and the multitude of fishes started to come ashore and walk on fins briefly)
Aeons pass
Writing the tale of us all
(The DNA and evolution branching out into other forms)
A day-to-day new opening
(The continuity of evolution)
For the greatest show on Earth
(a poetic reference to life developing and evolving)
#2
Ion channels welcoming the outside world
(Google Ion channels, protein molecules that span across the cell membrane allowing the passage of ions from one side of the membrane to the other.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_channel )
To the stuff of stars
(the original star dust everything came from and still is.)
Bedding the tree of a biological holy
(the start of the tree of life)
Enter life
The tapestry of chemistry
There's a writing in the garden
Leading us to the mother of all
(The periodic table of elements does look like a sort of patchwork tapestry, but this can go further. The historical function of tapestries was as "nomadic murals," pictographical histories which moving people could pack up and revisit wherever they went. The "writing in the garden," in nature, is not only the stone murals left by dead animals in the form of fossils, but is also this chemical writing that encodes the relatively nomadic DNA molecule with the instructions for life. The scientific investigation of this information leads us back to LUCA)
We are one
We are a universe
Forebears of what will be
Scions of the Devonian sea
Aeons pass
Writing the tale of us all
A day-to-day new opening
For the greatest show on Earth
We are here to care for the garden
The wonder of birth
(the odds of us being born at all is 400 trillion to one)
Of every form most beautiful
Every form most beautiful
(Forms Most Beautiful - Charles Darwin)
We are one
We are a universe
Forebears of what will be
Scions of the Devonian sea
Aeons pass writing the tale of us all
A day-to-day new opening
For the greatest show on Earth
[Part 3: The Toolmaker]
After a billion years
The show is still here
Not a single one of your fathers died young
(our prehistoric fathers must have been old enough to breed or we would not be here at all)
The handy travellers
(the first tool makers)
Out of Africa
(from whence we all came)
Little Lucy of the Afar
(Lucy was discovered at Afar in Ethiopia, an upright hominin, so called because the Beatles Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was being played at the time, Lucy is considered to be the missing link from apes to humans and believed to be about 13yo at the time of death.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus))
#3
Gave birth to fantasy
To idolatry
To self-destructive weaponry
Enter the God of gaps
(God of the gaps is a theological perspective in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence. The term "gaps" was initially used by Christian theologians not to discredit theism but rather to point out the fallacy of relying on teleological arguments for God's existence)
Deep within the past
Atavistic dread of the hunted
(relating to or characterized by reversion to something ancient or ancestral)
Enter Ionia, the cradle of thought
(Ionia is accepted as the cradle of thought and philosophy)
The architecture of understanding
The human lust to feel so exceptional
To rule the Earth
Hunger for shiny rocks
(Diamonds being suggested)
For giant mushroom clouds
The will to do just as you'd be done by
(A reference to Mutually Assured Destruction)
Enter history, the grand finale
(when we will become extinct too)
Enter ratkind
(this suggests after mankind has perished/killed itself, the rats will become dominant and sentient life, then they hypothesise how we became extinct. It is a fact that the first life forms returning to nuclear test sites are rats living in radiation levels lethal to us, this hypothesis is from Dawkins also.)
Man, he took his time in the sun (us now)
Had a dream to understand
A single grain of sand
He gave birth to poetry
But one day'll cease to be
Greet the last light of the library
(the cessation of mankind and the ending of our recorded knowledge)
Man, he took his time in the sun (us now)
Had a dream to understand
A single grain of sand
(in this second iteration, the first two bars of Metallica “Enter the Sandman” are played as a nod to them, one of the first HM bands to work with an orchestra and the sand reference. Metallica is rather a favourite of Tuomas too as they set him off on a musical path. There are several Easter eggs in this too with some phrases from classical and pop music too. Someone said, and I take no credit for this analysis, the little hidden melody bits were some African tribal drumming, a medieval hymn (Dies Irae), Johan Sebastian Bach (Christian Petzold) - Minuet in G major and Toccata & Fugue in D minor, American banjo music, Metallica - Enter Sandman and the bassline from Nightwish - I Wish I Had An Angel. Also Megadeth - Symphony of Destruction.)
He gave birth to poetry
But one day'll cease to be
Greet the last light of the library
Man, he took his time in the sun
Had a dream to understand
A single grain of sand
He gave birth to poetry
But one day'll cease to be
Greet the last light of the library
(There will be a human extinction event, no if's, just when. The sun is getting bigger by capturing space hydrogen, space is not exactly empty, it will eventually turn the planet to sand and boil the seas, we will be long gone by then, or on a different planet. It will become a red giant and swallow Mercury, Venus and the Earth. None of us need worry presently, it's a very long way off, a very long way off being about 5 billion years. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Life_phases)
We were here!
We were here!
We were here!
We were here!
(We have always been here, we're made of the space dust and condensing gasses from the big bang, everything before us is still here in a different state and everybody and everything to come is here, as yet un-assembled, we are a universe as the atoms and molecules that make us and we have come from a universe.)
[Part 4: The Understanding] (From Richard Dawkins)
"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.
Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara.
Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people.
In the teeth of those stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred"
[Part 5: Sea-Worn Driftwood] (original text from Charles Darwin read by Dawkins)
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
LUCA, last universal commun ancester. LUCY, the oldest human rest found untill today. She was found by a paleontologist. At this moment he was listening "Lucy in the sky with diamonds'. From The Beatles
This is Troy. He's playing a guitar whit an Ebow (electronic bow) this makes the strings vibrates to infinit
Great reaction. Love Floor's and Marco's voices together. Now she sings all the both parts in live the songs.
Troy also sings, but is not high up in the mix. More recently his singing is featured more, along with Floor, since the departure of Marco.
The uillean piles are normally
Tuned … instead for the highland pipes they made a specific chanter for play in a standard 440 tuning
Yeah Nightwish❣The song only lasts 20 minutes? I could listen to it for hours 👍 And thanks for your great reaction👏
Lol, pauses maybe a second before the rest of the band kicks in, asks where the metal is. Great timing 😂
This song is a marathon, not a sprint
She is goddes. Her dutch name Floor means Flower and has roots in ancient Roman goddes Flora.
That was awesome, and well worth the wait (even if I didn't know I was waiting).
Probably a long shot, given the time commitment, but I'd love to see you react to the Tampere version too.
Man I could feel your shivers when Floor started singing, just by the look of your face 😮😅😂
Hahahaha, "we were here..." we have ALWAYS been here, we are infinite....
amazing
Nice reaction. Greetings from Mexico City 🇲🇽
Nightwish Army south Brittany France reporting. Yes 20 mins, Toumas cut it right down.
No, that's Troy with an E-bow.
That whoosh that you heard was the history of music flying over your head.
E-bow...Modern technology that is decades old. And I still love 'em.
And that is why you never make a reaction video with superglue in you right palm. You'll end up gluing your hand to the face....
I LOVE this song. It is... art. Like most NW songs.
As I composed this comment, I was thinking of how, just a few seconds ago while listen to Troy playing the uileann pipes, how that part was giving me goosebumps up and down my arms and legs.
That aside, having listened to this performance at Wembly, do yourself a favor and look up the performance at Ratina Stadium in Tampere, Finland. Tuomas used fireworks, in the song's intro, not only for putting on a show but also as a percussive element.
Richard Dawkin's words are perfect!
Saw them at Wembly in Novembrt great night ..😎
I do enjoyed hearing you say you enjoying the symphonic of it and maybe the metal won't come al the while you where right there, like walking towards a cliff without knowing there is a cliff 😂 nice tree btw 😉