Leyendas del Rock ha anunciado para su próxima edición el regreso de los finlandeses Nightwish con una única fecha en España en 2018.Nightwish, desde sus inicios en 1996, han publicado ocho álbumes de estudio y siete DVDs con ventas mundiales de más de 8 millones de copias en total. La banda ha anunciado que volverá a la carretera con una gira titulada “DECADES WORLD TOUR 2018” que tendrá 9 meses de duración, comenzando con el lanzamiento de la colección de dos 2CD llamados ‘DECADES’, que serán publicados en marzo de 2018 de la mano de Nuclear Blast.
NIGHTWISHDECADES: EUROPE 2018 TOURIn 1996 Tuomas Holopainen made a three-song demo that eventually lead to his first recording contract with his brand new band NIGHTWISH.Fast forward 20 years, over 2000 concerts and 8 million sold albums later, the band are the biggest female-fronted European metal band that will now celebrate their 20-year career with a 2CD compilation (out on Nuclear Blast worldwide in March 2018) and with a nine-month World Tour with a special setlist full of surprises.The DECADES: WORLD TOUR 2018 will start from North America in March 2018 and after the summer festivals it is time to unleash the European part.DECADES: EUROPE 2018 tour dates:02.11.2018 PARTILLE ARENA, Göteborg, SWEDEN05.11.2018 MAX-SCHMELING HALLE, Berlin, GERMANY06.11.2018 BARCLAYCARD ARENA, Hamburg, GERMANY07.11.2018 LOTTO ARENA, Antwerp, BELGIUM09.11.2018 KÖNIG-PILSENER ARENA, Oberhausen, GERMANY10.11.2018 ACCORHOTELS ARENA, Paris, FRANCE11.11.2018 ARENA, Genf, SWITZERLAND13.11.2018 INCHEBA EXPO ARENA, Bratislava, SLOVAKIA14.11.2018 OLYMPIAHALLE, Munich, GERMANY16.11.2018 ARENA, Leipzig, GERMANY17.11.2018 TAURON ARENA, Krakow, POLAND20.11.2018 ARENA, Budapest, HUNGARY22.11.2018 HALLENSTADION, Zurich, SWITZERLAND23.11.2018 ARENA, Nürnberg, GERMANY24.11.2018 SCHLEYERHALLE, Stuttgart, GERMANY27.11.2018 SAARLANDHALLE, Saarbrücken, GERMANY04.12.2018 MEDIONALUM FORUM, Milan, ITALY05.12.2018 FESTHALLE, Frankfurt, GERMANYMore Euro tour dates will be published a bit later on.
We now have the cover and tracklist of the Decades album. Apparently all material is also remastered.CD1 01. The Greatest Show On Earth 02. Élan 03. My Walden 04. Storytime 05. I Want My Tears Back 06. Amaranth 07. The Poet And The Pendulum 08. Nemo 09. Wish I Had An Angel CD2 01. Ghost Love Score 02. Slaying The Dreamer 03. End Of All Hope 04. 10th Man Down 05. The Kinslayer 06. Dead Boy’s Poem 07. Gethsemane 08. Devil & The Deep Dark Ocean 09. Sacrament Of Wilderness 10. Sleeping Sun 11. Elvenpath 12. The Carpenter 13. Nightwish (demo)
Latest record sucked out the creativity from Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish - it was brought back by crosswords that also became a sidejob Having stepped away from the world of fantasy metal to science side, Nightwish returns from a year and a half long break. Tuomas Holopainen still considers Nightwish a metal band even though his own inspirators are mostly from outside the field of heavy rock. It is lonely at the peak of most internationally successful Finnish bands. When HIM called it quits at the end of last year, only Nightwish remained. By autumn of 2016, future was not looking too bright for that either. Artistic leader, keyboardist and songmaker Tuomas Holopainen was fed up with music.New songs had been constantly born for the last 20 years but now there was nothing."There were no stories to tell and I could't have cared less about the keys. Neither about listening to music", Holopainen recalls.He's sipping morning coffee at a hotel at Vantaa. After the interview, a rehearsal days lies ahead. As has been for the last three weeks.Nightwish has come back.In the beginning of March a compilation album will be released and the band will fly to the States. The world tour starts from Atlanta and lasts until the end of the year. For the setlist, the band is now rehearsing newly-arranged versions of it's early songs. Many of them have not been performed in 15 years. For the same Nightwish-rush, a new book called Nightwish - We Were Here written by Timo Isoaho, was just released. Book documents the phases of making the latest record and the subsequent world tour. There are not that many albums or tours that would function well as a subject for a great story, but Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Nightwish from spring of 2015 was a significant step out from the decorative format of symphonic metal.After wallowing for 20 years in different fantasy worlds, Holopainen made a record inspired by the evolution theory of Charles Darwin and especially The Ancestor's Tale written by Richard Dawkins in 2004 that follows the evolution of human and life backwards in time.Holopainen says he's been thinking about the conflicts between evolution and religions for ten years already. He describes himself as an agnostic atheist. "If one asks if I believe in god, I answer no. If I'm asked do I know that god doesn't exist, I answer no. Nobody knows. I always call for healthy skepticism, questioning and discussion."The book by Richard Dawkins made such an impact on Holopainen that he wanted Dawkins himself to guest appear on a Nightwish album. 77-year old British professor had no kind of concept about modern rock music but he happened to have an assistant who was into Nightwish."Dawkins said he liked Elvis", Holopainen says. Dawkins was attracted to Holopainen's way of popularizing the accomplishments of science. He undestood that Holopainen sees poetry in evolution that can be turned into music.Dawkins appeared on Endless Forms Most Beautiful -album as a narrator and did the same on a sold-out Nightwish show at Wembley Arena of London. 12 000 people fell silent as Dawkins stepped on stage. Holopainen and Dawkins gave interviews together and ended up on the covers of not only rock magazines but also mainstream media like The Times. "It was totally thanks to Dawkins", says Holopainen.Along with the mainstream media, the subject matter woke the interest of some fundamentalist Christians who believe in creation that are also well-represented on Nightwish's large fanbase. As the strongest opposition, an American fan shared a video on social media in which he/she burned his/her Nightwish albums. Holopainen says that the reaction from extreme Christians has been exaggerated. Nightwish has a vast amount of fans in the Catholic countries of South-America and Europe, but there were only a handful of cases of negative feedback based on belief and those were from the States and Finland."Vakaumus (belief, conviction) is the ugliest word in Finnish language." Born on Christmas Day of 1976 at Kitee, Tuomas himself was baptized into membership of Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, as most of the children were at that time."Religion is defined by which time and place one happens to be born", he says. "If religion was true, it wouldn't be geographically and culturally bordered."In Finnish rock scene, Tuomas Holopainen has played the role of some kind of a subdued hermit.Outside touring he spends his life at Kitee with his wife, singer Johanna Kurkela.The couple has recently finished their co-album that has been long in the making. The line-up is called Auri and is completed by third member Troy Donockley, the multi-instrumentalist from Nightwish. Going well with the hermit culture of Eastern Finland, Holopainen and Kurkela like to solve crosswords at home on their spare time. Now they are not only solving, but also making those. Since January 2017, Holopainen and Kurkela have been frequent assistants for the crossword magazine Punainen pelikaani. Their crosswords have also been published on Ilta-Sanomat and Soundi. Holopainen makes up the words and clues, Kurkela is responsible for the layout and drawings.Few years ago in the middle of a tour, Holopainen realized that he has read all the books and solved all the crosswords that he had with him."It occured to me that could I make some crosswords by myself", he recalls.According to him, designing crosswords and writing songs have a lot of in common."In both cases you create experiences for people and yourself out of nothing. When you can make those long words meet in a way that makes fancy words go everywhere, it's art at its finest." Because of the longer break, making the Auri record, and possibly even the crosswords, Holopainen has been able to make music for Nightwish again as well. Seven new songs are already done and the rest will come after this tour. In two years time we may have a new album at hand."It opened up like a ketchup bottle - as I believed it eventually would."
here’s just one Finnish band that has sold out the Wembley Arena in London and sold over 8 million albums: Nightwish. The band will publish their 20-year anniversary compilation album and go on a US tour in a couple of weeks. At the same time their front man Tuomas Holopainen’s new band Auri releases an album. Welcome, Tuomas Holopainen!- Hi.Nightwish’s compilation album Decades will be released on the 9th of March, the same day you’ll go on your North American tour. But before we talk about Nightwish, let’s talk about Auri. It’s formed by you, your wife Johanna Kurkela, and Troy Donockley from Nightwish. What is this about?- It’s about the joy of making music. And the joy of doing it with the people who think about music exactly like you. We got the idea of this in 2011, so it’s been in my mind for 6 or 7 years. When Nightwish had a sabbatical last year, we realized that we had time to fulfill this dream.It feels strange that while you had a massive work of making the new Nightwish album, at the same time… It’s like as if Valtteri (Bottas, the F1 driver who was a guest in the same episode) went to drive a go-cart after Formula 1.- Tuomas: I guess you do that sometimes.- Bottas: In fact, I did that last week.- Tuomas: So, it’s the same. No big deal. You just breathe, eat and drink music every day. It’s always with you. Once you’ve found these wonderful channels to release it, that’s nice.What kind of music is Auri compared to Nightwish?- This has been one of the most common questions in a past few weeks. What is Auri? We haven’t found a simple answer.Is it a light version of Nightwish?- Nightwish Light? No, it isn’t. This is very far from rock and metal. It has a lot of influences from movie and folk music and something from Pink Floyd. We don’t really know what it is, but Troy invented the term “celestial metal”. Or maybe it could be called “rabbit hole music”. In a record shop it may be found on the world music section.So, it’s some sort of world music?- I suppose it’s mostly that.But this isn’t just a side project. You are going to make this a real band that has gigs too.- That’s what happened. If you had asked a couple of years ago what kind of thing is Auri, I would probably have said that it’s a project. But when we finished the album and after I’ve been listening to it, I’ve become more ambitious. It feels a real band now, not a side project. When we manage to make the second album in a few years, we’ll go on tour. But before that Nightwish will go on tour.But you just finished your previous tour. You spent one and half years on the road, then had the sabbatical year and now you have to go on tour again.- We have the pleasure to go on tour again.I was coming to that. Do you have to do this in order that people don’t forget the band or for economic reasons?- We are doing this for completely different reasons. The tour and the compilation album were planned a couple of years ago already. And we have the passion to tour. That’s it, the joy of making music with your friends and visiting various places around the world. What would be more pleasurable?Let’s watch some clips. [a clip from Night 13 by Auri, a clip from Élan by Nightwish, and a clip from Alpenglow on the live DVD.]The last clip was from the legendary Wembley Arena in front of 11,000 people. You sold it out. It’s some kind of a goal for rock bands. How did it feel to play there?- It was wonderful. When we were presented the idea about playing at Wembley I had to ask: “Seriously?” Of course, that was a small risk. If we had sold only 2,000 tickets it would have looked embarrassing.Were you seriously scared of that?- About the five seconds when I heard the idea. But everything went well. We decided to film the live DVD there too.It’s not just any arena. The Beatles, Madonna and U2 have played there too. Famous bands. When I’m watching your actions, especially now when Timo Isoaho released the book We Were Here, it must be tough work. How can you be sane after 1,5-year tour?- You have to have the passion about it. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. You have to have the passion to make music, sit in a bus and airplane, and be with the people you’re touring with. During the years I’ve got into that better. To give someone room and ask how they are doing. You can plan the tours in a way that no one dies.How do you do it this time? You’ll start with a 7-week tour in the USA. What’s going to happen after that?- We always make a few weeks long leg and then have a three weeks long break. So, we have time to be home. After that we have about 15 summer festivals. In the fall we’ll go to South America and at the end of the year we’ll have a European tour. So, we’ll spend the Christmas at home. And then we start to make a new album.When I’m browsing your gig list… You have to sleep in the bus in order to make it to the next gig in time. Does it go like that?- That’s how it goes. I don’t sleep anywhere better than in the bus. So, we have, hopefully, a good gig, then go to shower and then into the bus calmly. There you go into your own little sarcophagus, the bed in the bus. The engine starts. It’s a nice hum. Everything is fine and you’re tired. And in the next morning you’ll wake up in a new city. In a way, it’s romantic and I like it.Romantic touring. Ilkka Mattila wrote in Helsingin Sanomat that you’re interested in creating crosswords. When did you start doing that?- I remember the moment very well. It happened a few years ago. I was in an airplane going somewhere to do something related to Nightwish. I had read all the books and solved all the crosswords, but I had grid paper and a pencil. I started to wonder how you create the crosswords. I had a journey inside my head and got addicted. It’s extremely intriguing. I made 15 to 20 crosswords before I dared to send one of them to my mentor Eki Vuokila. He responded that I have potential and suggested co-operation. Now we’ve created crosswords for the Punainen Pelikaani magazine for a year. There was one in Ilta-Sanomat too. And one in Soundi.Being guided by the crosswords veteran Eki Vuokila must be a good thing. How do you start creating a crossword puzzle? Do you make a corner or do you have an idea about the topic?- Usually I have first the main picture. Its text can be a word game or some kind of an idea. After that, you just keep going.Do you use a lot of four-letter words?- Well, yeah. Sometimes you find out a great hint for some word and insist to add that word to the crosswords.When was the previous time you finished a crossword puzzle that will be released?- A couple of weeks ago. I don’t know yet where it will be published. I have a few crosswords waiting.Valtteri, are you familiar with the crosswords?- Bottas: Not really. I have to admit that I haven’t solved many.Now you know who could assist you.- Tuomas: Feel free to send me questions.- Bottas: Yeah.Nightwish will have two gigs in Finland in July and one in Tallinn. Are those all?- We may have more at the end of the year.Oh, it’s a mystery.- I won’t tell you more about it now.Let’s wait for the information and also for Auri’s gigs. Good luck in your tour.- Thanks a lot.
