Nightwish Dark Passion Play tour grande finale in Helsinki 19.9.2009

The Dark Passion Play World Tour of Nightwish kicked-off in October 2007 and comprised 194 shows in 39 different countries. On September 19th, it was time to conclude the long journey at the sold out Hartwall Arena in Helsinki. The special atmosphere of the final show, preceding a two years tour break and anticipation of the new album, was tangible both backstage and among the audience. The show had drawn fans from various countries to Finland. Perhaps the most visible group appeared at the corner of the stage on the lower part of the auditorium, tirelessly cheering and waving their Italian, Spanish and French flags. The crowd further back appeared slightly passive in the first part of the set, but warmed up significantly towards the end of the show. Spectator waves revolving around the Arena, easily ignited by Marco Hietala, and the impressive light sea during the “Islander” and “Walking in the Air” were the atmospheric highlights of the evening.

The band played another great gig with flawless and powerful expertise. In specific, the sovereign appearance of Marco Hietala was striking. In this special night, the Finnish violin virtuoso Pekka Kuusisto guest appeared on the stage during the “While Your Lips Are Still Red” and surely added an extra dimension to the beautiful song. Troy Donockley joined the band playing pipe and bagpipe in several songs, as in some of their earlier shows. Special was also the appearance of “Meadows of Heaven” in the set list, reportedly for the first time ever. Perhaps this piece was intentionally saved for this specific occasion, but surely would that song have been warmly welcomed by the audiences in earlier shows as well. Visually, the show was expectedly grand and included the familiar DPP stage design with the massive anchor and the wooden boat of Tuomas Holopainen. Additional fireworks and pyrotechnics highlighted the special nature of the evening. In overall, this was really a high profile ending for the most successful period in the band’s history.

Apocalyptica featured as the opener and filled their spot with high reliability, intense playing and powerful sounds – no need to constant apologizing, which seemed to be their main theme in their interim comments. Antti “Hyrde” Hyyrynen from Stam1na was this time manning the vocal parts of “I’m Not Jesus” and “I Don’t Care”.

Once again, BogFires want to thank the Nightwish staff, especially Adam, for their hospitality.

Nightwish setlist:

Finlandia (with Troy Donockley) (Intro)
7 Days to the Wolves
Ever Dream
Wishmaster
Romanticide
Amaranth
The Siren (with Pekka Kuusisto on violin)
While Your Lips Are Still Red (with Pekka Kuusisto on violin)
The Poet and The Pendulum
Nemo
Sahara
Dark Chest of Wonders
The Islander (with Troy Donockley)
Walking in the Air (Acoustic with Troy Donockley)
Last of The Wilds (w/ Troy Donockley)
Meadows of Heaven
Encore:
Ghost Love Score
Wish I Had An Angel
The Heart Asks Pleasure First (Outro)

Graspop metal meeting (GMM) June 26-28

Bogfires visited the famous Graspop Metal meeting in Belgium, June 26.-29.2009. The Graspop festival was first organized in year 1986 as a local pop festival. In 1993-1994 Bob Schumacher joined forces with the original organizers and together they changed the format into a genuine metal festival. Over two decades later Graspop is one of the biggest and famous metal festivals in Europe, and in the course of its history over 250 bands have performed in the festival, including the biggest names in the metal genre, such as Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Megadeath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and so on. This year’s headliners were Mötley Crüe, Slipknot, Marilyn Manson and Nightwish. Besided Nightwish the only Finnish band performing at Graspop was Children of Bodom. Both Finnish acts had their gigs on Sunday, so we had plenty of time to check out the other interesting bands, such as Heaven & Hell, Down and Mötley Crüe on Friday and Delain, Kataklysm, Volbeat, Journey and Slipknot on Saturday. Journey, an American band that was formed in the early 70’s by former members of Santana, was alive and well, with their new singer, Arnel Pineda from Philipines. The band had found the singer on YouTube singing covers of Journey songs. Interestingly, all Children of Bodom members were really excited to see Journey’s show on Saturday. The headliner Slipknot played a solid show with no surprises. On Sunday, Lamb of God had an early slot at one in the afternoon, but once again put up an energetic and sharp performance. Other interesting shows on Sunday were Suicidal Tendencies and Chicken foot, an all star line-up with members from Van Halen, Red Hot Chili Peppers and maestro Satriani on the guitar. Nightwish performed on the main stage before the official headliner Marilyn Manson at eight on Sunday evening. Their hour and a half set list differed a little from the previous festival appearance in Finland, featuring for example Ghost Love Score from Once and title track Wishmaster. Children of Bodom had a later slot, headlining the second stage (a tent) at ten. This is how the band bassist Henkka describes his experiences of Graspop on the band website: “Sunday was sort a reunion feeling, when Lamb Of God and God Forbid was playing too. And Suicidal. Saturday we managed to get to the festival in time to see Journey. We played on Sunday, and the tent was really hot. But the crowd was amazing. Best Graspop show ever for us”. Bogfires would like to thank COB and Nightwish for their generosity and hospitality once again.

COB, NW & HIM mentioned in the metal history of the Classic Rock mag

The British "Classic Rock" magazine writes the story of metal in its Summer 2009 (#134) issue. Of the Finns are represented the big three:

Children Of Bodom's "Sixpounder" and Nightwish's "Wish I Was An Angel" (?!? wrong name doesn't necessarily improve the credibility...;) are mentioned as "songs that forged metal" from 2000 onwards (among with nine other songs from Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, In Flames, Disturbed, Opeth, System Of A Down, Immortal, Clutch, and Mastodon).

HIM in turn is briefly mentioned as one of the "five goth metal bands inspired by the sound of the Sisters Of Mercy (with Lacuna Coil, Type O Negative, Rammstein, and Marilyn Manson - hmm...).

Descriptions:

Sixpounder - Children Of Bodom (p.71)
"This Finnish band really broke out into the international scene with the Hate Crew Deathroll album. And "Sixpounder" is a definitive example of why it happened. The fierce extremity of old is still in evidence, but it has been given a new coat of classic metal values. The song roars right in your face, but it also still possesses sufficient finesse to be more than just musical concrete. It's got class."

Wish I Had An Angel - Nightwish (p. 71)
"More than any other song, this is the best example of the way that Nightwish could combine their goth-metal music with the soaring operatic vocals of Tarja Turunen., and encapsulate it all in what is essentially a finely tuned pop song. There's a charismatic sensibility here, overcoming any uneasiness in the increasingly fractured relationship between singer and band. This suggests what might have been had they remainded together."

HIM (p.70)
"Goth imagery + Bon Jovi-esque stadium rock powerchords x dandy frontman = pant-moistening superstardom. Download: Join Me In Death"

Hmm, hmm, hmm...

TMK @ Schiphol Airport

Heavy metal in Seoul

As noted already during my earlier visits to Seoul, the Korean metal circles seem to be very small, or at least it is very difficult to find information about gigs, bands or anything. Foreign bands seem to rarely visit the country, and local concerts are scarce as well.

There is, however, a special event called"Asia Metal Festival 2009" taking place in the Rolling Hall this Saturday (unfortunately after I've left the city), but without any bigger names on the list: http://www.myspace.com/asiametalfestival.

According to the locals, the music market here is dominated by local pop artists and bands. CD sales are marginal, as most of the music is downloaded from the web (with the exception of classical music). A visit to the music department of the Kyobo bookstore in Gwanghwamun, practically the only decent CD shop I've found, however reveals that there is a relatively good collection of metal CDs from better known foreign bands available. The brand new "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" album of Dream Theater is currently the only metal album visibly advertised, positioned on the 5th place in the store's list and accompanied with an article in the "Hottracks" music magazine. Probably the band's 2006 concert in Seoul is still paying off.

The only Finnish representatives in the store are Nightwish, Sonata Arctica and HIM, the last mentioned with the widest selection of albums, as well as a T-shirt, available.

And talking about metal T-shirts, they are extremely rarely worn on the streets. Only one from Black Sabbath spotted...

TMK

SAUNA OPEN AIR 2009 report

BogFires @ SAUNA OPEN AIR 2009
June 5-7
http://www.sauna-open-air.fi/

BogFires put another ethnographic precision whack into practice at the Sauna Open Air Metalfest in Tampere Finland. This three day festival at the city centre gathered lots of folk especially on Saturday (reportedly 10.000) and Sunday (8.000), even though the weather was not exactly the best possible this year.

On Friday, the day started with Amorphis at three o’clock in the afternoon. Not the best possible slot for the recent number 1 at the Finnish official chart with their brand new “Skyforger” album. As we were later told by Jouni Markkanen from King Foo, the band’s management agency, this deal was done with the organizers in order to attract more early comers to the festival area. This seemed to work, as surprisingly large crowd had gathered at the front of the main stage. The band understandably had to suffer from some technical and audio problems in the beginning, but once they were solved, vigorous sound and the nice mixture of old and new songs were well received by the audience. The band played three songs from the Skyforger album: “Sampo”, “Silver Bride” and “Majestic Beast”, from which especially the last mentioned piece of art with the Opeth-like passages, beautifully structured bridges and the melodic chorus pounded the Tavastian sky like the blacksmith Ilmarinen himself. The closing piece “House of Sleep” caused the biggest movement on the slightly muddy field of the Tampere South Park.

Of the Finnish export trumps, the day’s closer Apocalyptica played a convincing and professional show for the already a bit cold-stiffened crowd. As already familiar from many earlier Apo gigs, Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica visited the stage to sing the few vocal pieces.

Earlier, Sauna was entertained by Duff McKagan’s Loaded whose rather monotone offering was seemingly revitalized as Michael Monroe, the perpetual motion machine of the recently docked Hanoi Rocks, vaulted onstage to sing few GN'R oldies with the band. The main stage also featured the Swedish Soilwork, whose acute yet unsurprising show was carried out with good energy.

On the second stage, the best mood was created by the good-humoured Viikate and the rigorous Medeia. Medeia was replacing Meshuggah, whose cancellation (due to Thomas Haake’s not yet healed back) was a huge disappointment to many, including the BogFires team. However, the band filled the empty hole in an excellent way. Their tight songs and precise playing must be admired. Especially the guitar mining of Samuli Peltola was impressing.

Saturday was primarily spent in anticipation of the evening’s stars, the mighty Mötley Crüe. The performances of Poisonblack, Hammerfall, and Finntroll caused some mild quiver in the constellation of erected index and little fingers, but the true wake-up surge was served by the Sunset Strip saints. The opening triple, almost a perfect one, ”Kickstart My Heart”, “Wild Side” and “Shout at the Devil”, was followed by a set of the band’s old classics and songs from the latest album. The audience, which was presumably the biggest one in Sauna’s history, went absolutely crazy in nostalgia. And the band was seemingly enjoying the atmosphere as well, not least the reckless the Duracell bunny Tommy Lee who spent considerable time in chatting with the audience. After the 1.5 hours show, the night was sealed by “Home Sweet Home” that, at least in the front part of the crowd, resembled an ecstatic community singing session.

Sunday, a day with constant sunshine, was kicked-off by Kotiteollisuus that, similarly to Amorphis, was probably placed as an early act to get people wander towards the park and populate the beer stalls early enough. Hynynen, Hongisto and Sinkkonen, as usual, were in good humour and the first mentioned spent lots of time talking (or merely bitching) to the audience about its dumbness and stupid metal manners. It was an amusing start for the day. The down-to-earth and unaffected style of Kotiteollisuus was heavily contradicted by many of the later performers. The multinational Kamelot, in turn, played a surprisingly big show with pyrotechnics and their theatrical songs, which people really seemed to like.

The newly started Finnish veterans Stratovarius were as much liked, and the new chap in the gang, guitarist Matias Kupiainen seemed to well fill the big boots of Timo Tolkki. The band supplied a standard set of its swift power metal, but brought nothing new under the Tavastian sun.

On the small stage, Omnium Gatherum served its basic but rather monotonous death metal with a bit over the top gestures. The Swedish Bullet with their AC/DC-influenced basic rock with a cheerful attitude generated lots of smiling faces at the field, but the Canadian long-term show group Thor only made an annoying impact at least on the BogFires team.

Finally, the festival was wrapped up by Nightwish. These tireless itinerants are approaching the grande finale of their massive sequence of world touring in the Dark Passion Play style, but the miles seem to show up in the bands’ stage appearance only in a positive way. The sounds and accuracy of playing was namely flawless. The band, especially Anette, was conspicuously enjoying the appearance to their Finnish fans who, reciprocally, cheered the band with lots of sympathy. Even the surprising event of Marco totally forgetting the lyrics of the “Islander”, his own offspring, turned out to be a mood lifter rather than flattener and a strong sign of the band’s deep appreciation. Marco’s blooper made the band to start the song over again, still followed by minor lyrical blackouts, this time safely backed-up by Anette. Anette, according to her own comment, had again made a misjudgment concerning her outfit. Indeed, the shorts were not a good idea in the freezing wind of Sunday evening.

Otherwise, the show with the standard DPB visual setting, beautiful pyros and other decorations did not offer any surprises, particularly after seeing the band several times recently. The set list was also quite expected, including: “7 Days To The Wolves, Dead To The World, The Siren, Amaranth, Romanticide, The Poet And The Pendulum, Nemo, Sahara, Islander, Last Of The Wilds, Dark Chest of Wonders, I Wish I Had An Angel”. The set was coloured with the guest appearance of Irish Troy Donockley whose bagpipe brought a gorgeous add-on to “Last Of The Wilds”, “Islander” and the beautifully woven opening hymn “Finlandia”. An elegant closing to the three days of sonic delight.

TMK

Nightwish North American tour Part IV

New York, NY, May 2nd

Allentown, PA, May 3rd

Bogfires had an opportunity to see two shows of the fourth and last North American tour before Nghtwish will be heading back to the studio to record a new album. Dark Passion Play (DPP) world tour is scheduled to end in September when the band plays the last show of the tour in Helsinki Finland, at the same arena where they dramatically ended their Once world tour in 2005. Nightwish and Volbeat sold out the Nokia theatre in Times Square, New York, NY, on May 2nd. The bands provided the audience of over 2000 people an awesome show, with a special guest, Troy Donockley, who played the uillean pipes during the intro (Finlandia by Sibelius), the Islander and Last of The Wilds. Donocley played also on the DPP album and was originally introduced to the band by their producer. Bogfires had a chance to briefly discuss with Donocley about his collaboraton with Nightwish after the shows in New York and Allentown and he seemed very satisfied. He has become good friends with the band and especially with Tuomas Holopainen, so there is every reason to believe that the collaboration will continue on the next album as well. The setlist all together was similar than what they played on the last European tour a few months back. The venue at Allentown was also packed as hundreds of dedicated Nightwish fans had arrived to see the show at the Crocodile Rock Cafe. They did not have to leave disappointed because once again the band pulled off a great show and spent a long time outside the tour bus after the show with their fans. Special thanks to Nightwish management once again.

LL

Another report on the NYC gig here:
http://www.metalfromfinland.com/news/2009-05-07_09:03/NIGHTWISH:+When+Pigs+Fly,+Swine+Flu

Setlists:

Intro (Finlandia)

7 Days Of The Wolves

Dead To The World

The Siren

Amaranth

Higher Than Hope (NYC)

/Dead Boy’s Poem (Allentown)

Poet And The Pendulum

The Islander

Last Of The Wilds

The Escapist

Dark Chest Of Wonder

Wish I Had An Angel

New Nightwish video interviews online

The Finnish Karjalainen magazine has uploaded interviews of Nightwish before their current tour + interviews of fans and various video reports (on stage and backstage) from their current European tour, accompanied by journalist Hannu Jarva:
http://www.karjalainen.fi/Karjalainen/viihde/rokitvideot.html

Videos and English synopsis of Anette's interviews can also be found from Blabbermouth.net:
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=116395

Nightwish @ Brussels & Rotterdam

BogFires had the honour and pleasure to appear as guests in two Nightwish gigs in their recently started European tour with Pain and Indica: Forest National in Brussels (14/3) and A’hoy in Rotterdam (15/3).

The shows were the second and third on this leg after the sold out kick-off for over 4000 people in London (Carling Academy Brixton, 11/3). The size of the audience was reportedly around 5000 in Brussels and over 6000 in Rotterdam and comprised, as generally in the case of Nightwish, a mixture of young and old, women and men, metal heads and other Nightwish fans. Our small sample of interviews and general observations (as well as various YouTube comments) suggested that many of them regarded the concert as a great experience. Brussels crowd seemed to include many Finnish visitors, and a couple of white n’ blue flags were also spotted in the audience.

The audience was surprisingly loud, especially in Brussels where we watched the show mainly from the arena floor. Indica and Pain both already got people active, and Nightwish really exploded the place. The venue with the downward floor and wide profile is excellent for this purpose – despite the large size, the arena incorporates a certain feeling of closeness. A’hoy in Rotterdam is more of a normal kind of a sport arena, but also a pretty good one for concerts like this. AC/DC played there two days before Nightwish and the venue can be checked e.g. from various concert recordings like “Live & Off the Record” By Shakira and the DVD concert in “The Katie Melua Collection” set.

Finnish Indica filled well their opening slot, and the girls were seemingly enjoying their time on the stage. Their happy mood was transmitted to the audience as well, and the band probably got a number of new friends in both countries. The sets ended with Kate Bush cover “Wuthering heights”, an apparently risky choice, but which was carried out beautifully by the band.

Swedish Pain then took the sound and visuals to the next level, using basically the same stage setting as in their recent European headline tour. Despite small technical problems in Brussels, the set was intense, ending with the catchy “Shut your mouth”.

Nightwish performed a determinate, good sounding and fancy looking set on both days. The visual appearance of the show was particularly staggering with beautiful lights, grand and precise pyros, sneaking smoke, and other eye candy. The new sea theme with the majestic anchor and the wooden boat around the keyboards of Tuomas worked as a perfect background for the story line of the set. In particular, the transition from the intro with the secretively blue-lighted cross to the blasting “7 days to the wolves” was something one can only comment with great admiration.

Two days after the Rotterdam show, we spotted a short gig review in the Rotterdams Dagblad newspaper. Quite contrary to our experience, the reviewer gave 3/5 stars for the show and seemed to complain about the empty chairs at the venue and problems with sound quality. It is also quite strange that in such a short story, more space was used for the (seemingly eternal) comparisons between Tarja and Anette, and between (yes, in Holland, of course) Nightwish and Within Temptation than for actual concert reflections.

During the trip, we also checked the local rock magazines. Nightwish appeared in the cover of Belgian/Dutch Rock Tribune with a 4 pages long article. The French edition of RockHard also included a 4 pages long interview of Tuomas.

In addition to amazing concert experience, it was also interesting to follow how smoothly the organization of such a big enterprise functions behind the coulisse before, during, and after the gig. It really comes out that this caravan has toured the globe for a long period of time. Everything was managed with high professionalism, and the atmosphere backstage was remarkably friendly and relaxed.

BogFires really look forward to the next chance to see Nightwish live, which is not a very long away. We would like to express our warm thanks to Tuomas, Ewo, Toni, Adam, Peter, and the rest of Nightwish, Pain and Indica members and crew for their hospitality and such a nice time in Brussels and Rotterdam.

TMK & LL







Nightwish setlist (both days)
1. Intro
2. 7 days to the wolves
3. Dead to the world
4. The siren
5. Amaranth
6. Romanticide
7. Dead boy’s poem / walking n the air
8. The poet and the pendulum
9. Sahara
10. Nemo (Nemo played before Sahara in Rotterdam)
11. The islander
12. Escapist
13. Dark chest of wonders
Encores:
14. Ghost love score
15. Wish I had an angel

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find gig videos in YouTube.

Nightwish and VEEN spring water partnering

Nightwish and Finnish spring water brand VEEN are teaming up. This co-branding endeavour seems to be based on personal connections and shared values:

"... there are certainly some qualities connecting these two Finnish megabrands. They both get their inspiration from mythologies, and they are both highly respected in their own gendre. However, there is an even more obvious connection, which brings us to the small town of Kitee back in 1985. Mikko Nikkilä, Sales Director of VEEN started elementary school at the age of 7. It was an exciting day for all, including Emppu (Nightwish: guitar) and Jukka (Nightwish: drums) who also happened to be in the same classroom. After schooldays Jukka and Mikko used to play funky Finnish style baseball. They also played in the same band called Highway."

http://www.veenwaters.com/Nightwish_and_VEEN_on_world_tour_together

http://www.veenwaters.com/

COB, Stam1na & Nightwish high on the readers' poll of Soundi

The finnish rock mag Soundi also announced the results of it's readers' poll 2008. very metallic indeed...

Finnish bands:
1) Children of Bodom 2) Stam1na ... 4) Nightwish 5) Hanoi Rocks 10)Diablo 13) The Rasmus 18)Amorphis 20)Mokoma
Finnish singer:
1) Marco Hietala 2) Alexi Laiho ... 4) Antti Hyyrynen
Finnish player:
1) Alexi Laiho 2) Roope Latvala
Finnish album:
1) Childrem of Bodom / Blooddrunk 2) Stam1na / Raja

Foreign bands:
1) Metallica 2) AC/DC 3) Slipknot 4) Iron Maiden 5) Guns n' Roses 6) Volbeat 7) Motörhead 8)Coldplay 9) Opeth 10) Judas Priest 11) In Flames 12) Disturbed ... 14) Whitesnake 20) Gojira

and so on...

http://www.soundi.fi/

Anette Olzon MeNaiset-haastattelussa

http://www.menaiset.fi/

Indica warming up Nightwish in Europe

http://www.indica.fi/site/?en
http://www.viihdeimperiumi.fi/artikkelit.asp?id=2625&medialaji=Musiikki