I had the opposite experience of Orb Weaver. I went in expecting them to be great, and was horribly let down. As YardleyBates said, the setlist sucked. They only played 4 old songs: Nemo, Wishmaster, I Wish I Had An Angel, and one other. The rest were from the new album.
I didn't mind the way she did Wishmaster and IWIHAA, but I couldn't really hear her because the crowd was singing. However, on Nemo and the other one, I did not like her vocals. Especially on the other old song they played. She sounded off key.
On the new stuff her voice got annoying after a while. She sounds like a little kid. Her voice has very little range. For me, that sucks, but for Nightwish, it's great. As somebody said, she has a great pop voice. The band lacks identity now IMO. I kept thinking they sounded exactly like Within Temptation.
Ballads: The played, ballad, fast song, ballad, fast song, ballad. COME ON! You get the crowd going, then you play a ballad. Ok. But to do it three times in a row? Insane.
What was with Empu sitting on the drum platform during one of the faster songs? Was he tired?
Some people said that Annette had great stage presence and was a great front woman. I disagree. IMO, she barely interacted with the audience at all. She was into the music, but she kept doing this little skip step thing, which is cool, but again, looked very pop.
The crowd was very into the show. It was an odd audience though. Very yuppy.
So it was interesting to compare this show to the WT show a few months back. Roadrunner does a great job promoting acts apparently. However, I can't help but notice what happened to WT's sound on the their most recent album, and the same with Nightwish. Both had a radical sound change that moved them closer to a pop metal sound. Very radio friendly (less so with Nightwish though as their music hasn't changed much, just the vocals). Both bands had great audiences: Nightiwish was sold out, and WT had to be very close. However, both audiences were not your normal metal audience, but were both very different from each other.
Overall, the band sounded great, but I've learned since seeing them live, that I'm not a fan of Annette. I used to really like them too.
