It’s Sunday, September 30th 2018. At some point in the afternoon, a light rain begins to fall down on Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires. Not that anybody inside the Estadio Malvinas stadium would notice; all day the highly focussed crew is busy setting up the stage in the huge arena, while in the maze of passages down below the band is getting ready for tonight’s performance. This is not your normal band though, and it’s not your normal performance that’s being prepped. In a couple of hours’ time, symphonic metal trailblazers Nightwish will unleash their unique “Decades” show on the huge stage of the Argentinian metropolis. And once again, they will be setting aflame the hearts of thousands of dedicated fans.

Released back in 2018, “Decades” was so much more than a run-of-the-mill best-of. This comprehensive chronology of the band’s first two decades not only marked the band’s 20th anniversary; it was also the end of yet another era in the stellar career of Finland’s internationally most successful group. The consequent tour, too, was so much more than a regular anniversary run; from March 9th to December 15th 2018, the seventh Nightwish world tour enthralled 82 cities across Europe, North America and South America – armed with a once-in-a-lifetime setlist. “I didn’t just want to pick out the most successful Nightwish songs for this tour”, Tuomas Holopainen, symphonic metal’s most famous troubadour explains. “Instead, I asked myself which songs I would play to somebody who had never heard of our band. At some point during the preparation process, I realized than I was smiling all the time. I remembered the curious, innocent boy writing all of these songs.”

The fact that this innocent boy is still very much alive today became apparent during this already legendary run. It was rather obvious then, that one of those particularly stunning windows into the past just had to be immortalized for posterity. And while this could have been captured anywhere this symphonic metal carnival pitched their magical tents, it was the Buenos Aires show in particular - a city of Nightwish maniacs in its own right - that was destined to become a fabled event. This show achieved nothing less than taking an important snapshot of the band during yet another pinnacle of their career, celebrated by one of the world’s most enthusiastic crowds in a city like no other. It was pure magic.

“There was a lot of rehearsing before the tour began”, Holopainen recalls. “We didn't really remember how the old songs went. Floor had never sung them before and it was also a completely different thing for Troy.” All of their hard work paid off in the end, of course; experiencing Nightwish on this tour meant experiencing a band that had found itself back at its peak following drawbacks, crises and catastrophes. Of course, the unbowed magic of the songs played a vital part too. “I have to give a lot of credit to Floor, Marco and Troy that they're actually able to sing some of the lyrics with a straight face”, Holopainen grins. “Just take ‘Elvenpath’. I mean, it’s about taking a ride with a witch on her broomstick and warming up the sauna.” It seems that it wasn’t just Holopainen himself that cast thoughts back to the boy who wrote this unforgotten gem on a warm midsummer night in 1996. “In a way, I miss those days”, he says. “It was all new, it was all so innocent and pure. But the main philosophy of the band hasn't changed a bit.”

And that’s exactly what was echoed live in Buenos Aires, where Nightwish entered the stage to the rousing “End Of All Hope” and took their bow to the unmatched epic “Ghost Love Score”. In between saw a set filled with pure trailblazing Finnish glory - incorporating distinguished tracks “Wish I had an Angel”, “Sacrament of Wilderness”, “Elvenpath”, “Devil & the Deep Dark Ocean”, “Dead Boy’s Poem” and many more… The evening saw countless goose bumps and unforgettable scenes, all enveloped by a monumental sound – captured for all eternity by multiple cams. Let’s put it like this, if you’re already familiar with Nightwish, you know why this concert film is essential; and if you’ve happened to stumble across them for the very first time, you will surely be asking yourself just how the heck this could have happened, after seeing it.