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Alright, well I'm at the library right now, wanted to share with you my experience at the Stratovarius show in Seattle, Oct. 16. I got some bad quality videos that are about 8 seconds a clip that I might upload later, but they aren't good at all, and sound quality is horrible. And sorry, I have no pics for you because I was too busy enjoying the show
So we got there about 7:10 and I found Studio Seven to be very different from what I expected. Namely smaller and a little shabbier. Then, the first opening band began to play, and they were called "Final Hour." They were awful. They were a really pitiful death metal band. Their guitarist looked like he was no older than 14/13. At this time, there were about 20 people in the whole place. I was thinking, is this the crowd thats going to attend for Stratovarius? Eventually the whole place filled up to maybe 100-130 people, but its so sad that they play in front of thousands in Brazil and come to America and play as though they are some second-rate band.So my friend and I took advantage of the transition time from Final Hour to the next band "Waking Hour" to go buy Stratovarius t-shirts. I bought the black one with the golden 'fleur-de-lys' in the front for $25, and its worth every penny. Ok so then Waking Hour starts playing, and they were fairly good! I was impressed, and the singer was hilarious. He'd like take the microphone stand up and hold it horizontally while singing and do all this weird stuff...it was awesome. I laughed so hard at the singer that I began to choke on my water
Then Lyranthe starts playing and I found them to be OK. They weren't as good as waking hour, but the last song they played was fabulous. So then after them (during this part me and my friend& were hanging around kinda in the back) decided to scoot up to the front so we could get a better view of Into Eternity. We got fairly close, about 4 feet away from the stage, on the right part of the stage. Then, Into Eternity came and they rocked! \m/ ! It was the funnest performance, their performance rivaled that of Stratovarius! I was so impressed at the music, and really I was blown away by the guitarist, who was like 6 feet away from me the whole time. He was really amazing.
Ok then Into Eternity finishes and we're all impressed but our ears hurt. At least mine because I'm not a 'true metalhead' I suppose. Well, since some people were moving Stratovarius' stuff to the stage, my friend and I decided to move as close as we could to the stage. Now during the whole show there was this particular idiot probably 14-15 year old who was headbanging the whole time. And it wasn't cool, it was actually annoying, because each time he'd thrust his head back I thought he was going to knock me out. Well, anyway, we were able to get past him a little to the point where we could lean on the stage, and then I see Jens' Yamaha DX7 right in front of me! And the impression I got was, why is such a famous keyboardist playing such a shabby keyboard? It was pretty dusty and a few keys looked like they had been replaced because they were black (no I'm not stupid, the keys that were supposed to be white were black. I heard somewhere he replaced his keys from another Keyboard
). Well, no one was on stage yet, and then, remember that I am leaning on the stage itself, on the very right. So suddenly, these two screens come down and they begin to play this little tour diary thing. All these scenes from all over like Brazil, Chile, etc. There were some funny scenes like Lauri was playing with a remote control car, the usual faces from Jens and him getting drunk on the airplane, some short clips from their shows (it was funny comaring the 100-150 people who came up to see them in Seattle to the thousands in south america). Suddenly, the screens change and the maniac dance intro begins to be played, and Jens and Tolkki & Lauri all rush onto the stage and start playing with huge intensity, power, and speed "Maniac Dance." Koti runs up right when he has to start singing. So Jens was doing an awesome job almost right next to me playing his keyboard, and then to the left of him was Lauri Porra. The main impression I got from him was, for some reason, wow, he's tall. I mean he looked really tall, like he was some sort of giant. Probably my position. So Kotipelto's in the center stage, and Jorg'se behind Koti, and Tolkki is in the far left of the stage playing this beautiful blue guitar with this particular design on it.They continue playing a lot of the songs that they played at other shows, such as (not necessarily in this order, but I tried to be as accurate as possible). I was upset, they didn't play Season of Change or coming home.
Maniac Dance - This was really good live
Speed of Light
Kiss of Judas
Father Time
Bass Solo
Will the Sun Rise
Twilight Symphony - This was awesome live
Against the Wind
The Land of Ice and Snow
United
Hunting High and Low
During United, they had this whole thing where the projectors in the back started saying these hippy-like things. I had to surpress my anger at such stupid phrases as "THE KEY TO THE UNIVERSE IS LOVE", etc etc, "WE MUST UNITE." But it was still cool. So the two big screens had a different image for each song to reflect the song, it was pretty cool.
The bass solo was the most amazing thing I've ever seen, me and my friend's jaws dropped. IT WAS AMAZING. This guys is the best bassist I've ever seen. He played this whole three minute thing, getting into such intense passages with such speed that I could not believe my eyes. I was really surprised. Jens set up his camcorder so that people could watch his performance from the screen and he came really close to Lauri to zoom in on his fingers (like 2 inches away at some point).
Then the band abruptly leaves and people start shouting I think "We want more," and something like "3 more" or something on the lines of that anyway. So the band comes back and plays the three classics. Kotipelto was funny during Destiny, as during the last part before "let your spirit free" he was harassing Jens kind of, like acting all surprised at the chords he would play and such.
Destiny *I think at some point here Koti threw other bands members water bottles away. He through two water bottles, then took a third and everyone's hands went up, but then he started drinking it and set it down on the stage:p
Forever
Black Diamond
Then, Kotipelto started making us count to four in Finnish, the usual thing.
At some point, Kotipelto started shaking hands with everyone in the front row, and he shook my hand! My friend also was able to shake the hands of Lauri Porra and Jens Johansson. Despite the fact that I was about a foot away from Jens and 5 feet from Lauri, I didn't shake their hand.
At the end of Black Diamond, the band said "Thank You" and basically ran off the stage. But by Black Diamond, when the band came back from the encore, Jens was drinking a beer and he already looked kind of drunk. Kotipelto looked at him and said, "this is all too common a problem on our tours" laughing. At the end of black diamond, Jens was running off the stage and he looked rather deranged (in a funny kind of way), make a little face, and starting tearing bits of some paper on the stage and throwing it into the crowd, it was quite funny.
Overall, Stratovarius did an unbelievable job. The only problems for me were that Tolkki's speaker was very far away from where I was so not only did I not get to see him much, but his guitar did not sound good because the speaker was in the completely other side. Also, I didn't see Jorg much because Jens' keyboard was obstructing my view. Kotipelto's vocals were correct on pitch, but not loud enough for me because again of where I was standing.
During the show, Tolkki and Jens were occasionally glancing across at each other. Tolkki smiled a few times but looked rather bored for a lot of the concert. Lauri looked like he was having a great time. Jens seemed as bored as Tolkki, but at the end of Black Diamond when he was drinking the beer, he looked sort of upset as if he had a huge headache. Jorg was putting everthing he had into the drums, and Koti was singing really well (though not loud enough).
I don't have much to compare this concert to since i'm not much of a metal-concert goer (I only got into metal music about 2 years ago, and this is my first metal concert actually, though of course i've been to other rock concerts). But I really think Stratovarius did a remarkable job. The crowd was cheering, making the \m/, etc. Following Into Eternity was though was tough, but Stratovarius did great.
Yay, thanks Stratovarius.
they must have run out of drumsticks... they've played about 25 shows in six countries in less than 2 months and probably feel like caricatures of themselves by now (from MW dictionary: exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics) 
