Nightwish, one of the most wanted bands in the region, confirmed their performance at the opening of Exit 08, on 10th July.
Nightwish is also one of the most wanted bands in Serbia according to the Kontra Magazine survey "At Exit 08, I'd like to see". Among the 113 performers covered in the survey, the Finnish metal band was ranked 11th. Exit has also received many letters from Nightwish fansin the last three months. Their last album "Dark Passion Play" was released at the end of September 2007. It is the most expensive album in Finland's music history, which ranked No. 1 on the charts in Croatia, Hungary, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany and Finland. In UK, the album reached No.3 in "UK Top 40 Rock Album Charts", whereas in USA, it was No.7 in "Top Hard Rock Albums". The album was awarded 5/5 by Kerrang! magazine, one of the most important rock magazines in the world.
Nightwish is usually described as a symphonic and power metal band, and also as a soundtrack metal band. The definition of symphonic metal is based on Nightwish's massive inclusion of instruments and vocal styles of classical music and film scores. Tuomas Holopainen, the keyboardist, band founder and songwriter, says that he gets most of the inspiration for his songs from film music. He described the Nightwish music as "melodic heavy metal with a female vocalist". Bassist and vocalist Marco Hietala has called their music "film score metal". The use of more than 175 musicians for the orchestral and solo parts of the last album has resulted in the band now being described as epic metal by many people.
The female vocalist is the subject of media and public interest for two years already. From the beginning in 1996, when the band was formed, the female vocalist was the opera singer Tarja Turunen. Tarja was fired from Nigthwish after an impetuous end of collaboration and fierce open correspondence. Any speculation whether the band would sound as well as before was put to an end by the Swedish singer Anette Olzon. She was chosen to be the new lead vocalist out of 2000 singers that applied for the audition. Anette sang on the last album, which peaked at the top of the world charts. In January, Nightwish started a tour and within this tour they will be visiting Novi Sad in July.
While waiting for the release of their new single "Bye Bye Beautiful", announced for 15th February, you can take a look at their videoblog at youtube.com You will be able to see what makes them laugh during their performances, whether they prepare choreography in advance, and also their expectations of the tour, which started in the middle of January and will probably last for two and a half years.