For one time/Back then

More, a lot more than one time the youngest Nightwish-album ‘Once’ was sold and also quite a few concert tickets founded some customers. And all this didn’t happen very long ago because the Finns are still on tour at the end of 2004 and fill their crowd with enthusiasm. Keyboarder and main composer Tuomas Holopainen expresses himself on highlights, breakdowns and lapses.

*Were there any disasters on tour because of which you wished to vanish into the ground?*
- Nothing like that but once it was really short of time. We played in Athens before Judas Priest, in June. The local technicians did almost everything wrong which can be done wrong and the start of our show was 45 minutes behind the schedule. I already started to believe that we came to Athens in vain. But the manager of Judas Priest proved to be really cool and nice and he allowed us to overdraw plenty of time. But that was the only aspect; everything else went pretty good so far.

*What kind of highlights have been there for you in 2004?*
- When ‘Once’ was released I had a special goal, which means that there would be a platinum record outside of Finland, just one. In Finland we sold fifteen or twenty times gold or platinum counting in the singles but there was nothing from the foreign countries. And then we heard that we sold platinum in Germany, gold in Norway, Switzerland, Austria. What happened outside Finland is the absolute highlight until now. I never ever dared to dream of something like that. It’s the same scenario as before that our expectations were surpassed.

*You are in a very lucky position with this…*
- Absolutely, but we are not going to rest on our laurels.

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