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Celebrate 25 years of Nightwish and test your insider knowledge with the special trivia quiz prepared by our member Ocean Soul!

A new interview with Tuomas, with a mention of the band's 25th anniversary. They settled for July 6 as the actual anniversary date, Tuomas mentioned in a recent interview the 5th or the 7th. Oh and sorry for the poor translation! 😁 https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12002828 Tuomas Holopainen is an introverted rock star for whom the Covid era is suitable - Nightwish turns 25 these days Bassist Marko Hietala's departure from the band was a crisis. That's when Tuomas Holopainen thought for a moment that Nightwish's story is over. However, the exceptional virtual gigs of the spring sparked a fire of playing. Tapio Laakkonen, Laura Kosonen 4 June 2021 The entry in the cottage's guest book is almost a day from a quarter of a century ago. At that time, on July 6, 1996, Tuomas Holopainen sat with his bandmates in a cottage by the campfire and shared his ideas about the project band. There was no name for the project yet, but Holopainen had a vision of a loud female singer. None of those sitting by the campfire could imagine where the idea would lead. Now, 25 years later, Nightwish is one of the most successful Finnish bands. The band has lasted for a while, even though its creator and soul, Tuomas Holopainen, is anything but a time-bound person. - When the band got off to a flying start, I thought there was a nice adventure ahead. That this will be considered for a couple of years now, Tuomas Holopainen says. Hietala's departure was a crisis Holopainen's mind has only been serious about burying the band only once: when bassist-singer Marko Hietala announced that he was leaving the band last year. - That's when I thought for a while that this fable must be here, Holopainen says. Hietala’s playing and distinctive singing voice have been an integral part of Nightwish’s sound. - After a few days of brewing, however, there was a desire to make music with the name of this group. It feels like we still have something to give, Holopainen says. The band announced Hietala's resignation at the beginning of this year. A little later, it was announced that Jukka Koskinen would be the bassist at future gigs . Admittedly, there have been only two gigs so far, and they are also virtual. But when it comes to Nightwish, the thing was twisted to great power with virtual gigs as well. A green screen room was built in the Vantaa warehouse. A virtual fantasy world was created there, a “tavern on the edge of the world”. According to Holopainen, the costs of organizing the gig were “astronomical”, as no similar virtual show has been made in Finland before. The contract was worthwhile. Tickets for two gigs were purchased from a total of 108 countries. According to the band's own estimate, the gig was seen by more than 150,000 fans. The band crammed into a cube For the band themselves, the gig was far from the charm of a full stadium. The band and a few photographers crammed into a small cube in a Vantaa warehouse. - I wondered how to get into a gig mode in such a bare environment and without a live audience, Holopainen recalls. The itch to play together won over the barren framework. Holopainen thinks the gigs went great. The new bassist also took his place in the band. - Jukka was already familiar to us. He’s an extremely calm and grounding guy who fits the band’s atmosphere. And besides, of course, a virtuoso caller. In summer, Nightwish will also be seen live in Finland in Kuopiorock, Qstock in Oulu and Kaisaniemi in Helsinki. No one knows about the gigs for the rest of the year on the World Tour yet. It all depends on Covid. Creating crossword puzzles is a new hobby The Covid era has severely tested the music industry, but for Tuomas Holopainen, calming down has agreed. - It is really difficult to stop at first. Now it has been possible to watch movies, read books and play board games on the day. It has done good. Holopainen lives with his wife, singer Johanna Kurkela, in his hometown of Kitee. In the country house, the couple takes care of the garden, the horse and the cats. Mushrooming and berry picking have become an interest in recent years. Their latest hobby is making crossword puzzles. They do them regularly for Red Pelican magazine. Kurkela is responsible for the technical side, as Holopainen, in his own words, cannot use any computer programs. - I am not involved in any social media either. Songs for the band only very ready The songs are largely created solely in his own mind. Everything is based on feeling and story. Then Holopainen begins to ball in his mind how it would be told through music. The process is long, but Holopainen recognizes the feeling when he knows the song is ready. He makes music purely for himself and introduces the song demos to the band only when they are already at a very advanced stage. - Then we dress them up with the band.

The story of Nightwish is rich and full of twists... and so is the story of Nightwish' fandom! Here are some of the main events that shaped the community over the years. Of course this is not an exhaustive list, and I have probably involuntarily ignored many important events, so feel free to send in your additions. -------------- 1997 November: Angels Fall First is released, and Nightwish start touring. Fandom is born! Very few details survive from the early days... 1999 The official NW website hosts a fan chat that eventually becomes a forum, the Nightwish.com discussion board. Built with Finnish, English and German sections early on, it will soon evolve to include many more languages. 2003 February: Launch of the Nightwish-France website and forums. October: Oceansouls of America, the North American NW fan club is born. December: The Russian Nightwish fan club, Nightcom (at Nightwish.com.ru) launch their first forum. 2004 December: Launch of the fan site Ocean Soul at TuomasHolopainen.net, run by a Polish fan named Agnieszka (a.k.a. deathwish). 2005 April: The Polish Nightwish fan club launch their forums, eventually named Ocean Souls. 2006 September: TuomasHolopainen.net gains official status as Tuomas' web presence. 2007 The English section of the official Nightwish forum at Nightwish.com is shut down. 2008 February: Nightwish World, a semi-official international forum run by Nightwish France, is launched. February: TuomasHolopainen.net stops being updated, and the associated forum will slow down and become inactive by 2011. 2009 The Escapist, a Tuomas Holopainen fan site, is launched by Carol Walker, a British fan. 2010 October: After gaining official status, The Escapist moves to Tuomas-Holopainen.com 2011 February: Launch of The Islanders Fan Forum, home of the Nightwish British Isles fan club. November: The Nightwish English Forum (at NightwishForum.com) becomes the official English-language band forum, replacing Nightwish World. It will gradually include sections for Finnish, German, Spanish and Portuguese-speaking fans. 2015 April: Launch of Nightwish Family, currently the largest NW fan group on Facebook. October: A server crash signs the demise of Tuomas-Holopainen.com including the forums. 2016 August: Premiere of the fandom documentary "To Nightwish With Love". 2017 March: The official NW forum is moved from NightwishForum.com to NightwishOnline.com 2019 March: NightDreamers' Reacticide server on Discord is created. December: The official NW forum at NightwishOnline.com crashes... and burns, given the absence of backups. 2020 January: Part of the Nightwish Online community moves to a new Discord server, eventually named "A Walden Of Our Own". January: The band cease their involvement in fan community coordination and therefore community support. 2021 August: When the Nightwish France web site is revamped their forums are powered down, possibly replaced by their Facebook presence. 2022 January: Floor Jansen introduces FloorWorld, a social platform with free and paying tiers, replacing her YouTube memberships. The future...

I found another interview with JTH from 2004, this one is from a website that has gone offline. http://web.archive.org/web/20070303070728/http://www.beyondearcandy.com/john2hawksinterview.htm Nightwish 2004 Tour Feature by Ann Marie Reilly John Two-Hawks Interview August 25, BeyondEarCandy.com reporter Ann Marie Reilly had the opportunity to interview John Two-Hawks, the Lakota Indian featured on the Nightwish song, “Creek Mary’s Blood”. BEC: When I spoke to Tuomas in Kitee for the release party he said he found you over the internet, so this is how you came to meet him? JTH: Yea, he did actually, I guess he was over in Finland and he was looking for a top-level Indian flute player. Through him, and King Foo Entertainment, one or the other or both, they contacted me. Well, I’ll tell you what, I think NW has some of the best music I’ve hear in a long long time. It’s just incredible. This is not because my music is part of the Once cd. Just from an honest standpoint, really. I just can’t get enough of it, I play it all the time.(laughs) BEC: How many of their cd’s do you have? JTH: I have two, Century Child and Once. The Once cd came as part of the arrangement they made with me to perform with them that’s how I got those, the Century Child cd came because they wanted to show me what they were doing before the contract with me to join them on this new one so in a way they were both gifts. BEC: What was your reaction when you were first heard they were interested in working with you? JTH: Well the first thing is, let’s check these guys out and see what they’re about. What their music is, what their writing is, all of that. So after we kind of looked into that and discovered their music a little bit and looked through it and read their lyrics then I was pumped. Yea, I was excited. First of all I’m very musically eclectic. I’ve been a performer in lots of musical genres in the past but the other thing that really excited me was that I have interest in joining the music that I create which is kind of enchanting, very healing, very meditational if you will, really kind of music for the spirit. The instrument that I’m known for through out the world is the cedar flute. BEC: Is that specifically a North American Indian instrument? JTH: Yes it is, there are instruments in other parts of the world that are similar in nature and similar in design, but the American Indian cedar flute really is in a class by itself when it comes to that sound that it has; it’s different from the rest. I’m kind of a, I guess you’d say, a musical pioneer of some sort in that I try to endeavor to include other types of musical influences in the traditional American Indian music in the music that I create. So when Nightwish called and said that they wanted to do this and we heard the music and read the lyrics, I was excited because I thought this is great and fresh and a great opportunity to express the joining of very different musical genres and kind of wrap them together in a braid. I think the end result is absolutely, Phew!, power house, incredible and I’ve gotten a lot of responses from people and fans all over Europe; my fans and Nightwish’s fans all over Europe sent e-mail and posts on the message boards just raving about the song “Creek Mary’s Blood” so heh heh, people are liking it. BEC: I have to say it’s my favorite song on the album. JTH: Really? That’s great! BEC: Were you surprised that someone in Finland was interested in doing a tribute to North American Indians? JTH: Yea quite honestly I was surprised by that. If someone would have said make a prediction of where this kind of contact would come from, I gotta be honest, I probably wouldn’t have thought of Finland, no offense to the Finnish people that I’ve become friends with. Really I know that American Indian music, there’s a huge interest in it over in Germany, Japan and several other places over there in Europe, but Finland probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind. The other thing about it that was really cool was that I had a really good friend when I was in school who was a Finnish exchange student. She was a real good friend of mine so I had learned about Finland many many years ago and even considered going over there as an exchange student so it was really kind of interesting the contact came from them. BEC: Had you ever been to Finland before? JTH: Not until this, no I hadn’t been there. I’d been in various parts of Europe performing in concerts but Finland had not been on the list until then. BEC: What was your impressions? JTH: I gotta tell ya, I thought it was amazing. I tell you one thing, you gotta put this name in; Ewo. We love Ewo (Rytkonen) and we love Olga too, Olga’s Ewo’s finance. Ewo and Olga took us on a little walking trip of the islands right down the southern tip of Finland there off of Helsinki. We walked at night and the snow was on the ground and the moon was out and it was like the land of enchantment. It was incredible. If there would have been a warm room with windows looking out on those islands I could have composed the most incredible music that night because it was absolutely inspirational, enchanting, magical. The other thing about Finland that I thought was really beautiful was the people. I really enjoyed the people. Well, they’re kind of like American Indian people in a way. They think before they speak. They’re a little bit reserved like we are. They’re quiet and they’re thoughtful and they think about things and they’re intellectual. They’re beautiful people. I just had a wonderful time and everybody that we met and chatted with and got to eat with we found them to be very friendly, friendly people. BEC: What was your impression of the final version of CMB when you heard it? JTH: Oh geez, I thought it was absolutely incredible. When I was in the studio I asked him if he could run a quick studio cut for me so I could take it home to show the people here. What they came up with for the final product, there’s only a sliver difference in a couple of spots. And what they did as far as the finished product I liked. I thought it was incredibly tasteful and very well thought out. Their ideas were like mine. I have a hunch Tuomas had a hand in it. He and I are musical soul mates. We think along the same lines. BEC: When I talked to him in Kitee I asked him if he was going to have a chance to see you and he said he really hoped so. Were you able to work out something where you could meet up? JTH: Well, we’re going to see here, I know that they’re suppose to be performing in Denver sometime this weekend. I am right now on tour in Sante Fe. I’ll be heading through Denver and on my way to a concert in Wyoming. From what I know, I believe I will be performing a concert in Wyoming the same night that Nightwish will be performing a concert in Denver. So we are probably going to drive right past each other. We’re going to try they have our contact info and maybe we’ll make a connection here and maybe we’ll be able to do a lunch or something. You know it’s funny we were there in Finland only a week or so and we made what I consider to be life long friends. So it would be great to see them. BEC: He told me that you gave him an Indian name. I’m not going to ask specifically about that, because he felt it was kind of personal, but I’m curious, how does the inspiration for anyone's name come to you? JTH: Well, I tell you what , I can’t take credit for the name coming, because the name really came from my wife (Peggy). And I was just there to … we don’t do this, I’ve gotta be honest with you, this is something that happened this one time only. We’ve never done an naming ceremony ever. My wife had dreams when she was in Finland and they were all about Tuomas and they all had to do with certain things. So a name came to her. So we did the ceremony, a small private ceremony with Tuomas and that’s how he received the name. As he’s probably said or implied it is sort of personal and private. It was beautiful, it really was. BEC:Your website says you are an, (and I’ll probably pronounce this wrong), Oglala Lakota man, what does that mean exactly? JTH: By the way, you said that perfectly. Oglala Lakota that’s the name of my American Indian nation and the tribe or band or clan, I like to use the word clan. Within the Lakota there’s seven clans and one of them is the Oglala. You probably have heard us called Sioux but that’s kind of a misnomer, it was given to us by our enemies. We traditionally call ourselves Lakota or Dakota or Nakota depending on the group of people you come from. Prairie Dwelling people, that’s where the word Teton comes from. (Tetonwan) means to live on a prairie. So the Lakota people are prairie people. BEC : When you speak on North American Indian culture, what is your inspiration? Are you trying to educate people? JTH: Most of what I do, I’ll be quite honest with you Ann Marie, is concerts but I do get occasions to do education programs if you will, at universities and I do conferences for corporations, the list is endless, including the Food and Drug Administration. A lot of stuff. The journey is wonderful. The purpose I have for doing what I do when I do get a chance to do education on the culture really I thinks its to share with people the TRUE culture and history of American Indians. So often its misunderstood, misinterpreted, misrepresented, and even stereotyped. My purpose when I go into a theater or where ever it is I may do an educational program is to dispel the stereotypes; to erase the misconceptions and to impart correct and accurate, truthful and honest history and culture so people REALLY have and authentic understanding of who what and why we are as American Indian people. You know I think that’s really important because without American Indian people, without the indigenous first nation people there is no United States. There is no American people. Everything that we’ve given, it just expands. The language, the art, that’s in the land itself. You can take it from the field all the way to the President of the United States. That’s why I share the message of what we’ve given as far as contributions. BEC: I understand you play over 20 instruments. What are some of the other instruments do you play? JTH: The cedar flute is obviously the one I’m known for. Oh geez, let me throw some at you. I play all the different versions of guitar you can think of. I play the classical and folk guitar I play the 4, 6 and 12 string version of those. I play all kinds of stringed instruments including mandolin. I got an instrument while I was in Finland. Every time I’m on tour in different countries I always endeavor to pick up the traditional instrument of that particular people. And while I was in Finland, I asked Ewo, “What is the traditional instrument of the people of Finland?” and he explained to me that it was called the kantele. It’s a stringed instrument and so I said “Well, Ewo take me to a store. I must buy one.” So, he took me and I bought a kantele. It was really neat because on the way out of the store Ewo said, “I have taken many people to look at the kantele. You are the first to buy one.” I was really really honored by that. The kantele I have just used actually on a song that I composed for the new dvd that I had out it’s called “Wild Eagle.” The dvd just came out. It’s the newest product and the makers of the dvd series, it’s called Cedar Lake Nature series, they asked me to compose a song specifically for this dvd so I did. I composed a song called “Wild Eagle” and I used the kantele. Also I play piano, synthesizers and I know how to play several different kinds of horn but I don’t use those in my music. I also play lots of percussion instruments. I am a percussionist. All the percussion I use is the traditional American Indian percussion, though I’ve also recently incorporated some African percussion. And I’m also a singer. My voice was really my first instrument. I’ve been a singer for a very long time. That’s one of the things I love to do as much as play the flute. I try to incorporate all of that musical instrumentation in with the American Indian influence but I do it in a way that I use it as background. The flute is to me where it’s at. The power of my music comes from the flute. And I’m giving the accents just fills it in and just making it that much more powerful. BEC: What other countries have you played in? JTH: Well, let’s see here, one particular place that sticks out in my mind is England. That was a real special, special concert tour. I had some really wonderful experiences there. And it’s interesting too, in America when you do a concert and the concert starts at 8:00, it usually doesn’t start until a quarter after, because you always have stragglers, in England if the concert starts at 8:00, people are there at 10 minutes to 8:00 and nobody else shows up. Everybody’s there at 8:00 sitting in their seat waiting for the show to start. That was my experience over there. It was interesting. BEC: How long have you been performing? JTH: I’ve been performing professionally, or semi-professionally for 15 years. I’ve been performing on the cedar flute for about 10 years. BEC: What other types of music are you interested in? JTH: As I said before, I’m kind of musically eclectic. I describe myself as a musical extremists and a bit of a musical perfectionist. I guess I’m sort of a mad scientist. When I’m composing I like things to be a certain way and when I’m listening I like things to be a certain way. I like music that means something, so when a song or piece of music is passionate that what’s means something to me. I enjoy listening to songs by Simon and Garfunkle that were written in the 60’s. Bob Dylan, the song that he wrote about war, how many years must one man have before he learns to cry, those things mean something. He’s saying that with passion. And that song, because he sang with passion, means something to me. Songs that are kind of like “bubble gummy” I can’t get into too much. I need something to have a point. Because he sings with passion that's why it means something to me. As much as I like Simon and Garfunkle and Bob Dylan and Jim Croce and those kinds of songs, I also like Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne. I’m a huge Ozzy fanatic. I love his music and I just love the depth of his writing. He’s incredible. I appreciate the stuff by Eminem. Whether you agree with him or not, he means what he’s saying and he’s passionate. And besides being passionate, he’s a lyrical genius. He can put together lyrics like nobody I’ve ever seen. I really enjoy everything from metal to thrash metal to hip hop, some rap, to folk music and even classical music. And that was what I really loved about Nightwish’s music is that they were passionate When I read the lyrics, which I understand Tuomas writes, when I read those lyrics, Phew! here’s a guy writing from the heart. Here’s a guy writing with passion! The music is also incredibly ingenious and passionate. You can tell just by listening to the music that it says something; it means something. I like when the listener has to think. And Tuomas make you think with his writing. He writes in a way that makes you have to dig a little bit. The lyrics in the song Creek Mary’s Blood, oh they mean something. What he wrote really comes from his heart. BEC: What did you think of the poem at the end of the song that you sing in your native language? JTH: I think what he summed up really, in that poem was a spiritual truth. What it is, is our understanding of the whole circle, the whole perspective. We, in this society now a days, we look at things really close and when we do, we lose our perspective. But American Indian people, having been on the continent as long as we have, we have a tendency to look at things much further back, to see the whole picture. Tuomas with his poem kind of zeroed in on this and he captured with words the thoughts and the sense of feeling that American Indian people have about North America, about what happened to us here, but not only that, but about what is to come and what we see in the future, how we see this circle will come back around. Those that are of the earth, shall return to the earth and Tuomas kind of called that out in that poem. It’s like he transformed himself into an American Indian just for a moment in time. Maybe in someway he sort of stepped into our moccasin and really was seeing our world through our eyes when he wrote that. That’s what I think I think he wept, I think he probably cried in a quiet, private way. Maybe he clenched his teeth and his fist and felt emotion. You know, no one has ever asked me what I’m saying in the beginning of the song, (CMB). It is ‘All of my relations are all still here’ I did that on purpose. Then Tarja sings the words, “Soon I will be here no more.” I wanted to lend a balance to that. For American Indian people, we understand that all of our ancestors are still with us. What Tuomas is saying when he wrote that, was that all of the evils that have happned to American Indian people (are) very true. But I will be here and so that is very real, very powerful. So both expressions are right and are important to understand and so it is beautiful that in English it is saying one thing but in Lakota it’s saying another. So underneath, sort of the undercurrent is even though I am not here for you to see, I am still here.” We gifted Tuomas an American Indian cedar flute. I think he paid for it (laughing) But he really wanted one. He was very, very explicit about that when they were arranging for me to come over there. He wanted an Indian flute, so we had our maker make him one. I think he’s (the maker) on one of the websites. NativeCircle.com, his flutes are on there. So he made him a beautiful, beautiful flute and we have some private pictures in the private collection of Tuomas receiving the flute from me and me doing kind of a blessing. He can play it to, that guy! He’s pretty good at it. I wrote him and said, ‘So are you going to challenge me pretty soon?’ and he wrote me back and said, ‘I’ve been playing it but I know I’m no where good enough (and these are his words), ‘to challenge the great champion,’ he said, (laughs). It’s a perfect fit for him too because he such a deeply introspective kind of a guy as I am. We get along in that way.”

I'm posting this interview here because it's interesting and it's from another website that has gone offline in the recent years. http://web.archive.org/web/20070303234935/http://www.beyondearcandy.com/tuomasinterview2004.htm Nightwish 2004 Tour Feature by Ann Marie Reilly Tuomas Holopainen Interview On September 5 [2004], BeyondEarCandy.com reporter, Ann Marie Reilly called Nightwish manager Ewo Rytkonen before the final show of the tour Seattle for an interview with Tuomas Holopainen. After several attempts to locate Tuomas, Ewo decides to call back when his search has been successful. Finally, the call goes through. TH: Hello, it’s Tuomas BEC: Hi, Tuomas how’re you doing? TH: I’m doing fine thanks, how are you? BEC: Great. Have you had to do a lot of interviews? TH: Well, a few it’s not that bad, actually. BEC: I'm looking forward to getting your impressions on the tour now that it nears the end, but first I’d like to tell you, I had a chance to talk to John Two-Hawks last week. TH: Really!? On the phone or ? BEC: On the ‘phone. He was in Arkansas. I’m in New Jersey. I talked to him for about and hour and a half. He’s fantastic! TH: Really, that’s awesome. I haven’t heard from him for ages. How’s he doing? BEC: He was great. After such a fascinating interview I decided to do a feature on him too. I’ll send Ewo the link so you can read it. TH: Oh, that’s cool! BEC: He said he was going to try to meet up with you somehow on this tour. I guess you didn’t get a chance to speak with him? TH: No we didn’t. I tried to call him a couple of times, but I couldn’t reach him. BEC: He said that the outcome of Creek Mary’s Blood was exactly how he wanted it. He felt that was because you were musical soul mates. Did you feel the same thing? TH: Yea, we kind of were. In the studio it was close to magic because everything he did, you know, he agreed, I agreed and some things that wasn’t so good he immediately told me, ‘This wasn’t good,’ and I told him ‘That’s right, it wasn’t,’ so it was really like a mutual thing going on between the two of us. BEC: He also said, he thought in the writing of CMB, that you became like an American Indian. He said you sort of stepped into their moccasins. Did you feel like that? How were you able to relate so well to these people? TH: Yea I did, but actually I still take that as a compliment. I think that I have kind of like grown creatively into their culture because I’ve been reading a lot of books about their history and their culture and I watched “Dances With Wolves” like a hundred times and all this so I have like a little bit of understanding what they’re going through what their mind set is about. BEC: Yea, John had a lot of really nice things to say about you and the music. TH: I’m glad to hear that. BEC: About giving you the Indian name, he said that was the first time he’d ever done a naming ceremony. Did you know that? TH: Yea that’s what he told me and that really was an experience, I mean, that was incredible. I truly felt something when they did that ritual and I was so honored. I even like.. I’ve always been so that I’d never will get a tattoo but this is something that I would think about maybe on the arm or something and there are already so many fans that are calling me “Shadow Wolf” instead of Tuomas.(laughs) BEC: That’s really kind of cool! TH: Yea, really it is. BEC: Another song on the Once album that American fans have really be able to relate to is the “Higher Than Hope.” Of course the story of Marc Brueland is very moving, but how did you become inspired to write a song about him? TH: Well, I’m very close friends with the whole family, actually they are with us here (on the west coast) the whole time for four shows and tomorrow they’re flying with me to Finland. They are spending like ten days at my place with my parents, with my family. We’ve grown to be really close and I followed his story for like 3 years altogether before he finally died so it was just something really touching and I just felt like I need to make a song about this. BEC: I understand Marco co-wrote the song with you. What was his contribution? TH: He did almost all the music. I did the lyrics and some of the music but it was the last song that we did for this album and Marco came up with this song. By the demo song, I had these melodies, and “Ok,” I said. “It perfectly leads for the ideas of these lyrics I have that I want to write about Marc Brueland.” So we just did it together and the result is what you get. BEC: Whose idea was it to include the voice of Marc in the song? TH: That was my idea actually, I just thought that this would be the perfect immortalization of him to put his words on this part of the song. I really didn’t want to make a heavy song part of his story and I also didn’t want to make a, like, cheesy ballad and this song that Marco had was perfect like in between it’s kind of like half ballad but has a really, really hard punch in it, so I think it fit perfectly. BEC: Where did the phrase, “Red Sun Rising” come from. Is that a Tolkien reference? TH: That phrase to be honest came from Lord of the Rings Part 2, Legolas is saying, ‘Red sun rising.’ (blood has been spilt this night.) That’s a perfect metaphor. But I prefer ‘Drown without inhaling.' because I was on the ‘phone talking to Marc like ten minutes before he died. All I could hear in the ‘phone was this gasping sound I could barely make out the words. That was horrible. That really was so bad. (Pause) BEC: What has been your reaction to the success of the U.S. tour and the response of the fans? TH: I’m kind of confused personally, (laughs) but in a very positive way because we never expected anything like this from the fans. I mean the reaction from the fans is close to what it would be in South America. They’re really passionate, really wild over the music and we really never expected anything like this. I knew the sales were going pretty well. They even know the songs from the new album even though it’s not released yet. I guess that they have some imports or something. I mean that’s the biggest surprise; the fans, they’re so nice, so passionate. The tour altogether has been so much fun because there are new places we’ve never been in so everything’s new and since we are pretty much nobody here there’s not like a similar pressure that would be when we would perform for example in Finland or Germany. So it’s been quite a relaxing tour actually and a lot of fun. BEC: Do you know if any of the other dates were sold out besides NYC and the cancelled Canadian dates? TH: I think Los Angeles was sold out. There was a couple of others, I can’t remember for sure. Anaheim was sold out as well. BEC: What was your impression of the New York show? TH: That was probably the second to the best show on the tour. It was really awesome and I was kind of proud that the Road Runner people just happened to be there, (laughing.) I really liked the show and having Jens Johansson play one song that was also like an honor for us so I really remember that show and the Anaheim show. They were the best ones so far. BEC: Were you concerned when the barrier collapsed and the fans were so close to that narrow stage? TH: It was a little bit scary but you know there was like this big security man standing in front of us. Actually we were more worried that they would stop the show or something, but I’m just glad they let it go and I don’t think anyone got hurt or anything. To be honest I felt kind of like a (perverse) satisfaction of the whole thing because it just showed that people were so passionate. It was kind of cool to have this going on with this audience. BEC: Was it distracting to have the fans pulled up on the stage? TH: I don’t care about that kind of stuff at all. It doesn’t matter. Do what you have to do. BEC: Did you take a bus for the entire tour across the country or did you fly at all? TH: We flew from San Francisco to Seattle this morning, that was the only plane flight that we took. Yea, I forgot to mention why this tour was so much fun, that’s because of the bus. I truly hate airports and all the hassle with bureaucracy and all those things. You know you can go to the bus after the show have a few drinks go to sleep and wake up the next morning at the next venue so, you know. I love this kind of vagabond life. I love buses; traveling in buses. BEC: Did that enable you to see a lot of the countryside, or were you asleep most of the bus trip? TH: (Laughing) Sleeping most of it but during the days there was some fantastic sights. Things for example like in Colorado and Arizona. I love the barren beauty of the desert in Arizona, Death Valley kind of things and the Rocky Mountains in Colorado so just sitting on the bus and looking out the window and all that there’s a certain amount of romance in that stuff. BEC: I know there was some problem with Lullacry’s bus. Any “tour disasters” for Nightwish that hopefully you’ll be laughing about later? TH: Yea, they were like two days going and already the third bus and the third driver for Lullacry and then there were a lot of problems with our bus as well. For example the air conditioning went off in Arizona. You can imagine how hot it got. I think everything has been really smooth excluding the stuff with the bus, the air conditioning has been broken down like half a dozen times, but who cares, that’s what touring is all about. BEC: Did Tarja travel on the bus with you or did she have special travel arrangements? TH: She flew the longer distances but on the shorter ones she stayed in the bus with us. BEC: Does this effect the chemistry of the band? TH: Not at all. We’ve come to understand that, you know, you have to be really careful about really small things and I understand her completely. For example, the air conditioning in the bus can be the worse thing for your voice. It sounds ridiculous maybe but it really..it’s true, because I’m already feeling sick and I have a sore throat and being on an air conditioned bus and air conditioned rooms really gets to you and you know it doesn’t matter for us guys, we can play when we are like close to death, but singing is a whole different thing. BEC: So did you get a change to go to Disneyland? TH: I spent the whole day. I walked around for 13 hours. It was open from 9am 'til 10pm so I just walked around the whole time and had the time of my life and spent too much money on all kinds of shit. I bought just some stupid stuff like statues, characters, things that I love to collect. BEC: Did the rest of the band go with you? TH: No Actually, I was the only one to stay there, the rest of the guys went to little clubs in L.A. (laughing), yea you know the whole rock and roll thing, but you know I chose to hang with Donald and Goofy. (more laughter) BEC: Did you go to the park alone? TH: I was there alone from the band but the Brueland family was there with me. BEC: What was your favorite part? TH: I just love the overall atmosphere in there. You now I really know that it’s really commercial and all that, but I still love it being so neat, so free and everybody seems so polite. I love the atmosphere and, of course, I am a Disney fan. Hell, I’m a Disney freak, You can call me that if you want, I’ve been since I was three-years-old so that’s a really special thing for me there. I never get tired of that place. BEC: Did you go on any rides? TH: Yea, I went on Splash Mountain, that’s my favorite ride. I love the Song of the South, that’s kind of based on that. There’s a real nice drop in the end and you get really, really wet. I’m not that much into rides altogether, I just really love the atmosphere. BEC: Some of the guys were talking about seeing Dream Theater in Massachusetts. Did you see the show? TH: The rest of the guys went to the show. Just me and Marco we stayed in the bus and had a few drinks and went to sleep. BEC: With so many tour dates since the kick off of the tour in Kitee and with so many more scheduled before the end of the year, how do you keep your energy up and keep the music fresh? TH: I really don’t know, this will sound corny, but everybody in this band including the crew really loves doing this, what we are doing, and of course we have bad days, and we have good days, but still.. it’s still a thing we love to do and a feeling really comes from the crowd. It’s an interaction between the crowd so if they’re into it you immediately get into it even though how tired and sick you are. Yea it’s work then because you can feel really, really tired like 10 minutes before the show, you know that throwing up and being sick and then you get on the stage you see the audience, you start playing, everything works, you have the time of your life for and hour and a half and that after the show, you are cured. It really happens. (After the show) I usually always feel better. It’s a healing power the whole of the music and the crowd interaction. BEC: Are there any songs you are tired of performing? TH: There are two, Wishmaster and Over the Hills and Far Away. Those two are like the live hits and the fans favorites and there’s no way we can throw them out. This Wishmaster we have to play until the end of Nightwish so that’s really, you know, you don’t get on the mood playing them. BEC: Are you planning on adding new songs to the next part of the tour? TH: Yea we are , you know, just to keep the whole thing interesting for yourselves you will add some new songs to the set. So when we get back home we are going to take like a weeks break and after that go to rehearsal really before the Finnish tour and maybe train like two or three more songs to the set list. We’re definitely going to do “Ghost Love Score.” BEC: REALLY?! TH: Yea, we’re going to try even though I don’t know how we’ll do it. Everybody’s asking us, you have to do it. It really has become the fans’ favorite of the album, so at least we’re going to give it a try. BEC: Any possibility of playing with a live orchestra? TH: I thing it’s going to be more than a possibility. There’s no concrete plans just yet but we’re hoping to finish this tour off with maybe like three or four shows with an orchestra and choir and of course John Two-Hawks and playing the whole album, Once from beginning to the end and then maybe like 5 or 6 old songs and film the whole thing and come out with the live DVD. I’m sure that at some point this will definitely happen. Well, at the moment we’re talking about the end of next year. Maybe like October or November of 2005, yea. Definitely not before that. I can’t tell you anything else because I don’t know yet. I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen before the end of 2005. Definitely in Europe and in the same place (all of the shows) we’re not going to do a tour with them that would cost too much money and be too much hassle. So it would be once with the same orchestra like three nights in a row, something like this. Maybe like Germany, England, you know, London, Berlin something like this. I really don’t know yet. BEC: Were there any other special shows on the tour besides Anaheim and NY? TH: Oh, I’m trying to think. There has been a couple places, when you went to the venue and you thought that, ‘Ok…we suppose to play here?’ because there is like no toilets, no backstage, nothing and still the show turned out to be really awesome because the fans and everything worked, so for me this has still been the most surprising thing from the whole tour. BEC: I know the cancellation of the earlier dates were a big disappointment for the fans, and surely for you too, are their plans to reschedule them? How about Philadelphia? TH: Definitely, but it will not happen this year. There are some plans to do the whole thing again maybe in like May, um.. I’m sorry, March or April, to do a tour. And there’s actually a pretty good chance that we will do it since the record has been out, has been a few months so we’ll come here again. And the Canadian shows also will be done I think before Christmas. We hope to play Ghost Love Score there. BEC: One more thing I would like to ask of you. Feel free to say no if you don’t want to, but when we interview bands, we like to ask them to say a few words that we can play on the radio. The listeners really love that. Would you mind? TH: Sure! What would you like me to say? BEC: Just say your name, from Nightwish and something like “You’re listening to BeyondEarCandy.com.” TH: Ok “Hello out there! This is Tuomas Holopainen, the keyboard player and songwriter for the Finnish band Nightwish and you’re listening to BeyondEarCandy.com.” TH: Is that ok? BEC: That’s perfect!

I thought I would add here some details about Marc Brueland, the inspiration for the song "Higher Than Hope". This is from an epitaph published on the web page of the comic book publishing company he co-founded. Visit the link for photos. http://invinciblestudios.com/marc.html MARC CHRISTIAN BRUELAND Artist and DJ with an invincible spirit Marc Brueland, a talented artist and popular night club DJ passed away on Saturday, October 25th, 2003 after a seven and a half year battle with cancer. He was 30 years old and lived in San Diego. During high school, Marc developed an interest in comic books and began to pursue a career as a comic book artist. He wholeheartedly dedicated himself to his goal and honed his artistic skills becoming a top artist in Serra High School's Advanced Placement art program. A few short weeks after graduating he was picked up by the San Diego based animation studio American Film Technologies where he worked first as a clean up artist and advanced to the role of an inbetweener. After his stint as an animator, Marc once again set out to follow his dream of creating comic books. With two of his closest friends, Christopher Higginson and Rayel Friesen, they founded Invincible Studios, a small press comic book company. The three of them, only 19 years old each, self-published their own internationally distributed comic book anthology, "Three". His contribution to the book continued to draw praise even after he left the series. With another milestone under his belt, he went back to work in animation and quickly proved to be a superb character animator. He worked at Lightspan Partnership and Aerie Animation on children's educational projects. At only 22-years of age he worked as a lead animator and had started directing his first project, but his career was cut short when he began to show signs of his illness, Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma, a rare form of liver cancer. At Scripps Green, one of the nations leading Cancer treatment centers, he underwent a radical and high risk surgery to remove a large, tumor from his liver described as "grapefruit-sized" and most likely growing undetected in him since high school. Living up to his publishing imprint name, he proved to truly be "invincible" himself. Over the next seven and a half years he was plagued by several more tumors and major operations which limited his ability to continue with his artistic endeavors, but never dampening his hopeful and confident attitude. Despite being plagued by fatigue and chronic pain he was able to contribute a back up story to the popular "Lenore" comic book series by Roman Dirge (for SLG Publishing) and continued to look forward to eventually creating comic books again. Though unable to work full time as a comic book creator, Marc enjoyed attending the annual San Diego Comic Book Conventions and became an inspiration to everyone he met. Touching the lives of fellow artists and contemporaries. Not allowing the disease to deter his optimistic outlook, he turned his creative nature to working once a week at local nightclubs as a DJ. His longest tenure being at Club Sabbat, a popular goth/industrial club in San Diego. While searching through compilation CDs for his DJ'ing sets, Marc stumbled across an album featuring a cover of "Walking in the Air" by the platinum selling Finnish heavy metal band, Nightwish. Remembering the song from his favorite childhood cartoon, he immediately called his mother and shared the song with her. It was a difficult time for the family and the song served as a way to bring them all together once again. Wanting to learn more about the song and the band, his mother, Georgene, began making calls to the record label... and was actually put in touch with the band members. Through telephone conversations, Marc and the band's frontman Tuomas Holopainen became close friends. Marc traveled to Atlanta to see Nightwish perform at the Progpower concert and meet the band. During their performance, the band dedicated the song, "Walking in the Air" to him and despite the near crippling effects of his illness, he was able to briefly walk out on stage. Marc and Toumas shared a hug and Marc walked up to the microphone and said "That's my brother," to the roaring approval of the crowd, many of whom had heard his story and were moved to tears. After developing a friendship and inspired by the strength and courage Marc demonstrated in his battle with cancer, Nightwish began to record the song "Higher than hope" for their album "Once" as a tribute to him. The song features excerpts of dialogue from a news interview Marc did after his first operation. Unfortunately, Marc passed away before he could ever hear his song. In another sad turn in the story, Marc's Dad Eric passed away on November 11th, 2007 after his own battle with cancer. He had recently gone with the family to visit Nightwish's Tuomas and the Holopainen family in Orange County. Eric passed away listening to his favorite Nightwish song, "Meadows of Heaven" and is buried with his son. "The hopes were high. The choirs were vast. Now my dreams are left to live through you" - from 'Higher than hope' A message from Marc's family We would like to take this opportunity to express our heart thanks to all around the world who have been touched by the story of our beloved son Marc, either through this website or through the music of Nightwish. As you know, Marc lost his heroic battle with cancer October 25th, 2003. Over these past fourteen months our grief has been unconsoleable. Marc was the driving force in all our lives. His creativity, outgoing personallity and lust for life were infectious. A light has gone out in our lives and we have been left in the darkness wondering why? But through the music of Nightwish's Higher Than Hope, Marc is immortal around the world. The outpouring of compassion from metal fans, comics fans and those who knew him has helped us try to cope with this overwhelming loss. Therefore, in 2005 each time you hear Higher Than Hope remember Marc's courage and also know that his family will always be grateful for all the expressions of love shown us from strangers around the world. Sincerely, The Brueland Family Edit: And here's a video with Marc's family shot in 2007 in California during the filming of the Bye Bye Beautiful video. https://youtu.be/6u8UO1PpzKM?t=834

I found on YouTube a transcription/translation of the spoken word at the beginning of Etiäinen (original demo version). I'm quoting from Mikko Rantalainen, the poster: I think [Tuomas] is speaking a poem: "Pakkasyössä tunturten, tanssii tulet leiskuen, elo ammoin mennyt on, tunnen sen, kutsun pohjan neitojen, yllä Lapin." I think this has been created by Holopainen because I cannot find similar passages elsewhere. I would translate it as: "In the frozen nights of Lapland's mountains, the sparkling fire [of aurealis borealis] dances, life [or lifehood] has already gone long time ago, I feel it, the call of Northern maids of Lapland." The word "elo" may refer to living (as opposed to death) or harvesting the crop or in this context, losing the crop due poor weather. And the word "ammoin" is a really old word that usually refers to long time as in ancient or a generation. And the "Northern maids" are probably reference to Kalevala where such a term is used to refer daughter of the mistress of the north Louhi. For more information about Kalevala, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala Another possible interpretation in this context might be a reference to Valkyrie but I think the poem would use some other expression but "pohjan neito" if this was the intended message.

Ha! 😄 Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a quality (or even complete) recording of this once-in-a-lifetime show, but perhaps there are still treasures to be unearthed. I'm compiling a list of the available YouTube recordings from the various shows, and going chronologically I'm just getting started on the Imaginaerum tour. https://www.nightwish.online/forums/topic/66-2012-13-imaginaerum-world-tour

So I must have missed #7 and 10, no surprise there! 😁 I'll have to check the story relating to #6. About #9, I watched that show on YouTube a few times, a fascinating story! And Marko singing "Rest Calm" was fire! 🤘

Looking for something else I found this guy, Andrew Wrangell, who has an impressive collection of NW piano sheet music, maybe it can be of help. https://www.musicnotes.com/search/go?w=andrew wrangell nightwish&from=header https://composer1992.wordpress.com/sheet-music/

Good stuff again! Some of these I used to know, but got erased from my memory over time.

English is actually my second or third language, so I'm not the best judge, but I found no issue with your questions. 👍

No worries about the Finnish-related questions, I wouldn't change anything. Besides there are a couple of Finnish speaking members here, maybe they will join in!

Ugh, there's no spoiler button on mobile... will have to do something about it! Just wanted to say that I didn't know about #3, and I would never have guessed #8. And I'm curious about how many more would make the #7 list... Setlist.fm is not very accurate for early shows because contributors tend to fill the gaps with expected setlists from the same tour, but lots of info hasn't been verified.

The virtual Within Temptation show has been postponed by 1 week (to July 15-16). Looks like it's all about smoothing out some technical glitches. There's also a new preview video, it looks very video-gamey but the guest singers part is intriguing. Edit: it would seem like Tarja might be one of the guest singers.

Good, looking forward to find out where I went wrong. I'm not peeking! By the way, traffic on the forum is slow and people wander in and out according to their schedule so don't worry if there's not a huge turnout, more will eventually join in. I think the quiz is a great idea, especially as this month the band turns 25... Not sure if they will do anything about it, but it's a good moment to look back at their eventful history! 😉 Are we talking about the AFF release with Tuomas' home address printed on the sleeve? 😁

Great stuff! 👍 I'll give it a shot without Googling anything, because of course many of these things can be looked up. I suggest that we use the spoiler tags (the eye button 👁️) to post our answers. Looking forward to more questions! 🤘

Another show for Floor, September 2021:

For your quiz you can simply post the questions, of if you want to do multiple choice questions you can use the poll feature (see here for example) and I can help you with setting it up if you would like.

Thank you! I was looking for a somewhat biographical account of the Anette years, but besides the early years biography and the EMFB tour book there seems to be nothing official available.