On Friday, September 28th NIGHTWISH took the stage at the Ogden Theatre in Denver, CO without vocalist Anette Olzon, who was hospitalized due to illness. Support act KAMELOT‘s backing vocalists Elize Ryd (AMARANTHE) and Alissa White-Gluz (THE AGONIST) stepped in to fill Olzon’s role alongside bassist/male singer Marco Hietala. Fan-filmed video is available below:
KAMELOT backing singers Elize Ryd (also of AMARANTHE) and Alissa White-Gluz (also of THE AGONIST) filled in for NIGHTWISH vocalist Anette Olzon last night (Friday, September 28) at the Ogden Theatre in Denver, Colorado after Olzon was taken ill and had to be hospitalized.
Commented NIGHTWISH: “We were in hell [yesterday]. Vocalist in a hospital. Show about to be canceled… But nobody gave up an inch. With the help from the ladies Elize and Alissa from KAMELOT, we actually managed to pull of a relaxed and great show! The crowd doing the mass karaoke with the band playing was absolutely amazing. We were humbled and grateful at the same time. This is unity and help from friends and fans.
Fan-filmed video footage of last night’s concert can be seen below.
“Anette is already recovering, thanks to the medical staff and whatever powers there exists. The shows will go on.
“We give our greatest respect to Alissa, Elize and the crowd in Ogden Theatre, Denver. You rule!!!”
NIGHTWISH‘s long-awaited “Imaginaerum” film — based on the band’s album of the same name — will be released theatrically in Finland on November 23.
The movie will have its premiere on November 10 at Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland, where the audience will be treated to both a full-scale NIGHTWISH concert and the first-ever public screening of the movie.
Eagerly anticipated around the world, “Imaginaerum” creates a musical fantasy world in the vein of David Lynch, Neil Gaiman, and Cirque du Soleil. The movie is an innovative mixture of story-telling and music, an extraordinary tale of the power of imagination… and what’s ultimately important in life.
Shot and post-produced in Canada, the movie was directed by Stobe Harju and produced by Solar Films, and features appearances by all NIGHTWISH members. The screenplay is based on a wild vision that Tuomas Holopainen, the mastermind of the band, devised after the album “Dark Passion Play” came out in 2007.
The official soundtrack of the movie, “Imaginaerum By Nightwish: The Score”, will be released on the day before the premiere — Friday, November 9. The album features 13 grandiose, unreleased re-interpretations of “Imaginaerum” tracks by Petri Alanko.
The “Imaginaerum” album was released in the U.S. on January 10 via Roadrunner Records.
A three-and-a-half-minute video clip in which vocalist Alissa White-Gluz of Montreal, Quebec, Canada-based melodic death metallers THE AGONIST talks about the band’s just-released third studio album, “Prisoners”, can be seen below.
Alissa has also posted the following message on Facebook:
“Here’s a little insider info just to clarify, since a lot of people don’t understand how the industry now works. We would feel bad divulging this kind of info and shattering the dream, but a lot of metal musicians seem to be doing it nowadays so I think we’re ok to do so as well.
“Why are we asking you to buy the album? We don’t see money from album sales. We have never seen a single royalty penny. But, if your band is known to sell a lot of albums, especially in the first week of release, you get more offers for tours, therefore making it more possible to play to more fans.
“Ticket money: As an opener, we do not see any money from ticket sales or have any control over ticket price. As a headliner we rarely see any money from ticket sales as well.
“YouTube: If you think we are making money off of YouTube plays, check out whose channel our videos are on (Hint: It ain’t our channel!) Again, we’ve never seen a penny from YouTube plays.
“Merch/CD sales: To get our albums shipped out to us, we need to pay about $10. We sell them for $15. Venue takes about 15% usually, manager takes 10%. Therefore, we are left with about $1.25 profit per CD. T-shirts, they cost about $10 to create and ship, we sell them for $20; again, you can do the math. So we have a few dollars profit per item sold, but about $200-$300 in gas per show, plus the expense of work visas (about $4000 for the USA), vehicle and trailer leasing, and all the other expenses that go into touring.
“We sleep in the van, don’t eat, don’t get to bathe. We hire no crew. We get maybe $20 or $30 a day to get food or save up to pay rent. We invested years of our lives into this and some had to take time off work to record this album. And this is not just our band. We can safely say that this applies to every opening metal act we have ever toured with.
“Sorry to shatter the rock-star fantasy, but the truth is we all work 9-5 as soon as we get home from tour, if our jobs are gracious enough to allow us to leave and return. Otherwise we scramble to find even the most menial jobs just to cover our bills in between tours.
“So — taking our project without paying for it is STEALING. But if you repay us by spreading the word about the band, getting your friends to come out to our shows, buying our merch, giving us a place to stay or some other form of support, you’ve paid us back. Nobody wants to go to work and not get their salary, but bands do it ALL THE TIME. So, have some respect for the work they do and support in whatever way you can.
“Hope that clarified everything! Enjoy ‘Prisoners’!”
“Prisoners”, was released on June 4 in Europe and June 5 in North America via Century Media Records. The CD was produced by Christian Donaldson (CRYPTOPSY) and mixed by Tue Madsen (THE HAUNTED, DARK TRANQUILLITY, SUICIDE SILENCE) and it “picks right up where 2009′s ‘Lullabies For The Dormant Mind’ left off, with soaring melodies over complex metal passages that fans of thinking-man’s metal can appreciate,” according to a press release.
In regards to the album artwork, Alissa White-Gluz states: “We wanted to really include a chaotic visual to reflect the chaotic sound of the band, but we also wanted to show that the lyrics on this album are a lot more introverted…The human face was left non-descript on purpose — it doesn’t belong to any particular person, but we could call him the Lonely Solipsist.”
“Prisoners” track listing:
01. You’re Coming With Me
02. The Escape
03. Predator & Prayer
04. Anxious Darwinians
05. Panophobia
06. Ideomotor
07. Lonely Solipsist
08. Dead Ocean
09. The Mass Of The Earth
10. Everybody Wants You (Dead)
11. Revenge Of The Dadaists
In a recent interview with MetalConcerts.net, Alissa White-Gluz stated about the musical direction of the follow-up to 2009′s “Lullabies For A Dormant Mind”, “I wouldn’t say it’s heavier or more melodic. I think it sounds more mature. It has the same sort of schizophrenic side that ‘Lullabies’ has, but it also has some other I guess what you would call classic influences. Like, there’s some PANTERA influence, there’s some RADIOHEAD influence. I mean, there’s a lot of influences that we didn’t really have before.