Fugazi

Next up from the Amsterdam show is "Nemo", an acoustic version very reminiscent of the Imaginaerum tour version with Jukka pounding at his drum box "between his legs" as Marko would put it! 😁 Here's the band version for academic purposes, Orlando 2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT6bbuMnPwM I must say that I prefer Emppu's solo, but Emppu is Emppu.

This is awesome work @Ocean Soul, thank you! 🤘 It should be pinned (and it is now!) and made required reading for all new members. Now I feel like I can really understand Finnish culture and spirit, not to mention all those behind the scenes shenanigans of my favourite metal band! 😁 Just today I saw on Facebook a lot of "Vittu" and even a "Voe vittulaine" in reply to the possible further postponement of the Tampere show... I don't know how things are going on your side of the pond but here we're in deep Paska with perhaps 4 times as many cases per day that our previous peak since the start of this mess.

Perhaps worth mentioning here, while there was only one official video made from this album (Storytime), Nuclear Blast held fan video contest for "The Crow, The Owl and The Dove", and it was won by Pedro José Antunes Hipólito Calvo from Portugal. His entry is a very nice animation, and the band was apparently very happy with his work.

Here's a nice video interview made shortly after the release party for Wishmaster in Kitee, including some live images from the Kitee show. They already had some experience under their belts, but the real challenges and drama were yet to come.

For the record, this performance was recorded at the Lord Hotel in Helsinki on February 12 2000, before the Wishmaster World Tour started in May. http://natfinals.50webs.com/90s_00s/Finland2000.html There was a singer doing backing vocals for Tarja during the live performance, anyone know who that might be?

Cancelled tour T-shirts are now available, I guess it's a unique way to support the band! It also works for those who attended the Olso show, the only one on the list that actually took place. https://www.backstagerockshop.com/fi/pages/search-results-page?q=nightwish+corona

The Nightwish singers have performed solo many of the band's songs, some of which they never sang live with the band! Here's a partial list that may be of interest. Don't dismiss it only because it's not officially Nightwish, there's some surprisingly good (and exclusive) stuff here! And yeah, there's some pretty bad stuff too! 😁 The "unlock" 🔓 symbol denotes songs never performed on stage with Nightwish. Tarja Turunen solo The Phantom Of The Opera: Savonlinna 2006 (with Raimo Sirkia) Dead Gardens: Unknown 2008 🔓 Angels Fall First: Miskolc 2010 White Night Fantasy: Ostrava 2010 🔓 Where Were You Last Night: Ostrava 2010 🔓 Beauty Of The Beast: Vizovice 2010 Erämaajärvi (Lappi part I): Tilburg 2010 🔓 Stargazers: Buenos Aires 2011 Wishmaster: Buenos Aires 2011 Over The Hills And Far Away: Wieze 2013 (with Floor Jansen) Swanheart: Unknown 2013 Tutankhamen*/Ever Dream/The Riddler*/Slaying The Dreamer medley: Clisson 2016 (*instrumental only) Planet Hell: Madrid 2020 Dead To The World: Rio de Janeiro 2024 (with Marko Hietala) Wish I Had An Angel: Rio de Janeiro 2024 (with Marko Hietala) Anette Olzon solo Kuolema tekee taiteilijan: Stockholm 2009 🔓 Meadows Of Heaven: Stockholm 2009 Last Ride Of The Day: Helsinki 2015 Bye Bye Beautiful: Israel 2015 Amaranth: Israel 2015 Meadows Of Heaven: Helsingborg(?) 2019 Floor Jansen solo She Is My Sin: s-Hertogenbosch 2006 (with After Forever) Ever Dream: Amsterdam 2021 Slow, Love, Slow: Amsterdam 2021 The Phantom Of The Opera: Amsterdam 2021 (with Henk Poort) Our Decades In The Sun: Amsterdam 2021 Élan: Amsterdam 2021 Marko Hietala solo The Islander: Santiago 2024

All right here come the answers! Let me know if I missed something! Thanks for playing! 😄

Apparently Henk Poort's recent (November 11, 2021) show was broadcast on Dutch TV, and therefore recordings are now available online. Of interest, Floor was invited to sing on Dangerous Game and The Phantom Of The Opera. Full show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw7gjWkRX6I

Wow, I don't know how you do it, I had trouble finding ten puny questions! 😄 You have made hundreds by now, I've lost count. Respect! 🤘

Indeed, at this point the only way for 2022 is up! 😁 As for the forum, it's clear to me that band activity drives fan activity, and it's been a pretty slow year for the band! I have high hopes for everyone involved that 2022 will allow for more shows to happen and hopefully more activity here too, but I'm not complaining, it's been great having you people around to keep me active too! 😄👍

Okay, looking forward to the answers! 😀

😄 Not bad at all, you have 4,5/10 which given the impossible task is pretty impressive! 🤘 Answers probably tomorrow?

Ok my work here is done! 😉 The best possible live recordings of songs that didn't make it to the official DVD/BR releases. Sources of better material are always welcome, as you will notice some subpar recordings in the list. Some songs also don't have known video recordings for now, only audio. I was pretty certain that Tarja had sung Romanticide live, but it appears I was wrong. 🤔 Of note, recordings of Crownless live exist, but none are available on YouTube. Comments welcome!

If anyone was interested in Anette's opinion on the current Nightwish line-up: https://www.instagram.com/p/CX0ehJ0sv2o/ I guess there are still hard feelings between Anette and Troy, perhaps understandably given Troy's published reaction to Anette's departure back in the days.

Here are some of Marko's performances from the Raskasta Joulua 2021 tour. Enkelikello: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiM4WWJ4PUQ Valkea joulu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpQfV_lC55w

Here's an opinion piece about Marko's departure that I only discovered recently. It's an interesting, if somewhat pessimistic, view of the consequences of Marko's leaving on the future of the band. Reflections on the plight of Nightwish David Bentley, May 3 2021 https://www.nordicmusicreview.com/post/feature-article-reflections-on-the-plight-of-nightwish-finland I’ve sat on this article for several months while I weighed up the events of January when Nightwish’s bassist and vocalist Marko Hietala suddenly and unexpectedly announced he was quitting the band, on the eve of his 55th birthday. This is as big as it gets in the world of metal. It’s the equivalent of, say, John Lennon opting to part company with the Beatles, Robbie Williams walking out on Take That, or Ginger Spice bidding au revoir to the Spice Girls. I still can’t really draw any meaningful conclusions but I’ll give it a go. Time is of the essence now as Nightwish start their year-long delayed world tour with two 90-minute global virtual online shows on 28thand 29th May. It is conceivable, though I hope I’m wrong of course, that this could be their last tour. Hietala is a 20-year veteran of the symphonic metal band which celebrates its 25th birthday this year, and has become something of an institution, not only for his bass playing but his vocal contribution, both solely and dueting fiercely with his three female counterparts; most famously perhaps with Tarja Turunen on Nightwish’s cover of the theme to ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, one which even committed fans of the world’s most renowned musical respect and admire. In true Nightwish fashion Hietala posted his resignation notice online for all to see. In it he said he was not only leaving the band but also “public life”, complaining that he could no longer “validate” his life and taking a swing at the industry, targeting specifically streaming, profit sharing and “paying dividends to Middle East… (where) some theocracies can take the money from the music that would get you beheaded or jailed there without appearing as hypocrites” (sic). It’s a muddled message couched in fractured, creaky grammar which suggests he wasn’t really thinking straight when he wrote it. But there is much more to it. He acknowledges that it is common knowledge he is a chronic depressive, saying, “It’s dangerous for me and the people around me, if I continue. Some of the thoughts a while back were dark.” Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Finland still has the highest suicide rate of all the Nordic countries and they are all bad. And that was before the pandemic. (Which begs the question of course, how many other musicians are in this state?). He ends, “I am so sorry about this.” It sounds like an epitaph. We just hope he has the support he needs. In a statement, the band said it left them with “some difficult decisions and choices to be made”. I’ll bet it did, and compounded by having to discuss them by Zoom with two band members located in Sweden and the UK. The most pressing question is who replaces Hietala on male vocals? Nightwish say they intend to use a session bassist for the tour and will make an announcement about that “soon”. Although technically a tenor - and an exceptionally good one, he won the Finnish version of the ‘Masked Singer’ competition in December (which doesn’t quite square with being depressed, I suppose) – he can also turn on a deep bass voice like a tap and can growl and grunt with the best of them; an essential part of the armoury for a metal vocalist. Possibly it could mean the Englishman Troy Donockley plays a greater vocal role. A full-time member of the band since 2013 his significance has grown and he can sing for sure as he proved on the latest album,’Human. : II : Nature’. (April 2020) on which he performed lead vocal on one track. Or perhaps band founder Tuomas Holopainen could help out. He added supporting vocals in the early days. Finding a full time singing bass player of Hietala’s quality might present Nightwish with a big problem and fortune can favour the brave as it did with Genesis when they had to replace Peter Gabriel in 1975. Having listened to hundreds of aspiring candidates they ultimately turned to their own drummer. Perhaps this is Donockley’s Phil Collins moment? But there is something deeper to all this. For years the prospect of losing their lead female vocalist (again) has haunted Nightwish’s global army of fans. After the final performance of their ‘End of an Era’ toursupporting the album ‘Once’ in Helsinki in October 2005 the male band members infamously and publicly sacked founder member Tarja Turunen, accusing her of ‘diva’ like behavior and of being more interested in herself and money-making than the band itself. That decision polarised fans in a manner that persists to this day and lo and behold they did the same thing again seven years later, this time to the Swede Anette Olzon, while she languished in a U.S. hospital bed with crippling stomach pains. Something tells me that if they repeated that today, in the age of female emancipation they’d be banished to the Arctic Circle forever. And yet the fear of current singer Floor Jansen going the same way has lingered throughout her nine-year tenure. Let’s face it, they’ve got form. Not that the strapping, physically impressive Dutch six-footer would be a pushover and even if they had any grounds at all to dismiss her (which they don’t); they’d have a fight on their hands to say the least. And that is why Nightwish fans have been blindsided by this shock, out of left field, Marko Hietala debacle; why they’ve been hit for six. It’s like an official announcement that the Covid pandemic is over, followed by another one five minutes later about an untreatable variant of Ebola sweeping the planet. The real possibility now is that Nightwish might be about to face up to its own ‘End of an Era’. Much will depend on the permanent choice of Hietala’s replacement and of how he (or she) fits into the overall scheme of things, including song composition. These are big boots to fill. And on how the other band members adapt accordingly. It’s not all doom and gloom. Many people believe Floor Jansen is the best thing that ever happened to Nightwish, and she came on the scene 14 years after they started. Who knows who will follow Hietala? They don’t rush replacements unless they have to and the next bassist might be better still. But the message is, see this band while you can, just in case, whether it is one of these two forthcoming virtual shows or an in-person one (they begin on 31st July). I was a latecomer to Nightwish, I’ve only seen them once and it was a slightly sub-par show by their standard, the 74th out of 75 across the globe in six months. I was still mesmerised. They are the biggest band in the Nordics, the only one I can think of which can fill arenas from Beijing to Buenos Aires and all points in between, except peculiarly, in the U.S., where many people don’t seem to ‘get’ symphonic metal. If they’d ever properly ‘broken’ North America they’d be the biggest band in the world, bar none. In the last few months videos have emerged of their 2018 ‘Decades’ tour, including this one from Buenos Aires, where the fans always behave as if Messi has just scored a late hat trick in the World Cup Final to crush Brazil. It’s a two-hour show, brilliantly staged and filmed. I point you to the final two songs, which are two of their three famous 10 minute-plus metal-prog ‘opuses’, namely ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ (about evolution and the future of the planet, and a celebration of life [“we were here”) – that’s Jansen grunting at 1:47:00 by the way, what a woman - and the show-concluding ‘Ghost Love Score’ (original sin), which for my money is the finest song written so far this century, by anyone. The ending is always fabulous and in this case it is orgasmic. Enjoy.

More of the Christmas spirit!

Well you're made so many quizzes it's difficult finding topics that you haven't covered yet! 😄 And yes the questions are difficult, I would fail the test myself if it wasn't stuff I searched for!

I expect another major fail today! 😁 I don't have a good feeling about this! 🤔😁

Special Edition Holidays Quiz Here it is, and not the easiest one! 😈 1. Name one of the songs which were ever performed live only once by Nightwish. 2. What is the name of Tarja Turunen's first solo album? 3. Nightwish' first show was in 1997. How many shows did they play that year? 4. Name one of the countries where Nightwish ever played only once. 5. What is the name of the song sang by Felicia Sorenson and played from tape as an outro exceptionally during the August 2003 concert in Sweden? 6. Which is the shortest Nightwish song? (only among the songs released on albums, and not counting individual sections of multi-part songs like The Greatest Show On Earth) 7. Name a Nightwish song that Floor Jansen sang solo but never with the band? 8. What is the name of Marko's brother and co-founder of Tarot? 9. What is the name of the famous Dutch theme park roller-coaster ride for which Floor Jansen was asked to sing on the soundtrack? (the deal eventually fell through) 10. Name one of the few B-side songs ever played live by Nightwish. Good luck! Answers coming up in a few days! 😀

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy, safe Holidays! 🎄 🥳 Thanks for hanging out with me on this forum! 🔥 And @Ocean Soul don't miss the Chaoszine raffle this time! 😉 https://chaoszine.net/advent-calendar/december-24-nightwish/ How about a nice Christmas-related oldie from one of my favourite archive YouTube channels:

It's only 20 seconds, but this is the first video snippet I have ever seen of the very first Nightwish show on December 31, 1997 in Kitee! I don't know if the audio (Elvenpath) is from the same performance, because it sounds a lot like the studio track. Surely there must be more of this somewhere?

Yes please, whenever you feel like it, it could be fun! 😁