Nightwish

The idea of Nightwish was "born" in July 1996 at midnight when Tuomas was spending a night with his friends around a campfire. The first three songs, which were acoustic mood music, were recorded between October and December 1996. At that time, the band had three members: Tuomas, Tarja and Emppu. The band went to the studio this in April 1997.In May 1997, Nightwish signed a recording contract with Spinefarm for two records. In April 1998, they started filming the first video, The Carpenter. It was ready in early May and was first played on Jyrki. In early 2000 the band entered the studio again for the recording of their third album. A welcome interruption came to the repetitive studio work when they took part in the Finnish qualification for the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Sleepwalker. The beginning of 2002 brought Nightwish good news, in comparison to previous rough times. As a band and as individual musicians they were voted to the top on many domestic and foreign magazines reader's polls. The fans had not abandoned them after the changes, on the contrary. Ever Dream, the first single from the forthcoming album, went gold in Finland within 2 days. At the same time Nightwish announced they would take a break as soon as the "Century Child World Tour 2002" would be over, Tarja would finish her educations in Germany during the break. That announcement brought up all kinds of speculations among fans. Sami leaving the previous Fall, now a break that would last a year... The beginning of 2003 saw more good results in reader's polls of various magazines, and a studio was booked in order to start recording the next album, planned to be released the next year. Happenings also at the home-front: Jukka and his girlfriend Satu had a daughter, Luna, on March 11, 2003. Nightwish received their first double-platinum award for Century Child, having sold 60,000. The band performed mostly abroad in 2003, the only gig in Finland was at RMJ 2003 on June 20th. Their fifth album "Once" would be the most important release in the history of Nightwish. Meanwhile, Finland's President, Tarja Halonen, had also taken note of Nightwish's achievements and invited Tarja Turunen and her husband Marcelo Cabuli to the annual independence-day party held at the presidential residence. Tarja's dress was voted as the most beautiful dress that evening. Before the Christmas of 2003 Nightwish auctioned their "Century Child World Tour"-backdrop, and donated all the money to charity. The year 2004 was eagerly expected by both the fans and the band. Exhausting studio-sessions took their toll both physically and mentally. The actual recording took place at the Phoenix-studios in London, the same studio and with the same orchestra (The Academy of St. Martins in the Field) that Howard Shore used for writing the score for "The Lord of the Rings"-trilogy. Nemo was the first single released off the forthcoming album, and a big-budget video was made. The director was Antti Jokinen, who had previously worked with Shania Twain and Eminem. Once went gold in Finland on its day of release, as did the single "Nemo". Nightwish started a world Tour of 150 concerts in all continents, the tour lasted until the end of 2005. This tour was be the biggest in the history of Nightwish so far. The album "Once" sold gold in Finland immediately on its release day, as did the single "Nemo". In May 2004, Nightwish started the Once World Tour. In February 2005, Nightwish won five awards in Emma-Gala (Finnish Grammy). Among the others they won awards for "The Band of the Year" and "The Best Selling Album of the Year". Tuomas and Marco flew from European tour to Helsinki to receive the awards. The last show in the European tour was so far the biggest gig of their own, in Stuttgart there were 10,001 people watching the show! The year 2006 began with good news for Nightwish: Their "Highest Hopes" Best-Of compilation had not only crossed the Finnish Double Platinum mark of 60,000 sold copies, it was also Finland's best-selling album of 2005, having sold more than 65,000 times. The auditions for the position as new lead singer ended in mid-January. All in all, the band had received and listened to more than 2,000 demos from singers from all over the world. Exciting news that was followed by the announcement of the first new live shows, scheduled to happen in the USA and Canada in October and November. On May 24th, all speculating and waiting was put to an end when Nightwish introduced their new lead singer, Anette Olzon. Within minutes, the news was all over websites and news stations around the world. One day later, the first single "Eva" was released as an internet-only single. The single's entire revenue was donated to a children's charity. The new album "Dark Passion Play" was released in late September and had a very successful start all across the world. It was awarded double platinum in Finland after just two days and received four more gold awards so far. The album entered the charts at the top position in several countries. The world tour is booked, first shows already sold out, the new era has begun...