By Carl Begai

When it was announced in July 2013 that NIGHTWISH would be filming their Wacken Open Air show for a future DVD release, it was a no-brainer hint that stand-in vocalist Floor Jansen had been elevated beyond temporary status. No band, not even a moneymaker like Nightwish, is going to blow their wad on a massive production like Showtime, Storytime featuring a singer with her days numbered. Keyboardist / mastermind Tuomas Holopainen confirmed as much in a separate interview (found here), admitting the decision to keep Jansen around was made during the summer even though Nightwish waited until October to make the news official. An exercise in patience and sitting on her proverbial hands for Jansen, to be sure.

“It was a challenge keeping it quiet, that’s for sure,” she agrees. “That’s the sort of thing where you just want to scream it to everybody, but even on the day itself I couldn’t really share the news with anyone. Only a few people knew. I’m happy the DVD is out now so I don’t have to worry about hiding the news anymore.”
“The DVD is a great way for people to sort of get used to my sound and hear how Nightwish has been part of my life for the last year,” Jansen adds. “It’s also a nice introduction for the new studio album. The documentary is a fantastic look behind-the-scenes because there’s so much mystery around Nightwish, so it gives a little peek at the guys. These days everyone can anonymously throw shit at people online, and I think the DVD shows a certain humanity and a different face of the band.”

For anyone living under a rock, Jansen got the job fronting Nightwish in the wake of the mid-tour booting of previous Nightwish singer, Anette Olzon, in October 2012. Jansen’s entrance was a troubleshooting effort that paid off as she gradually made the songs and the stage – and ultimately the band – her own. Quite the accomplishment considering she’d been sidelined since 2011 recovering from a burnout that put her post-AFTER FOREVER band REVAMP on ice. And there’s nothing quite like recovering from being a mess by joining one of the most popular metal bands on the planet at the last minute.

“(Laughs) Definitely, but the peaks of the mountains seem even higher when you’ve been down really, really low. There was a period of a year-and-a-half where I wasn’t able to do anything. Getting asked to join Nightwish for the tour put everything back in balance and forced me to really consider what I want to do. At the same time it was really difficult because I was burnt out. When I slowly got my energy back and was able to think straight, I started to feel a lust for music. My normal levels of ambition started to come back, and just as I was making plans for ReVamp I got the call from Nightwish. That was a year ago and it’s been a non-stop run since. Hard work and doing a lot has never been a problem for me; it’s just the way of doing things that can be a challenge.”

This chat took place during ReVamp’s European tour supporting KAMELOT, and Jansen made it clear she’s fully invested in Nightwish but equally committed to ReVamp. She has a clear idea of how she wants things to progress and is set to keep things balanced accordingly.

“There’s the emotional side to it, there’s the planning thing, and there’s the ‘How much energy am I going to have?’ question in all of it. One burnout is plenty, so the question was how I was going to do both Nightwish and ReVamp. I don’t want to drop ReVamp because we wrote a great new album. The guys waited long enough for me when I was sick, the fans have been waiting a long time, so Wild Card really had to come out. Our first tour was interrupted by my burnout, so it would be really good for this new album if we have a real tour, like with Kamelot right now. As far as scheduling, the next year is very do-able so I have time to give Wild Card the push that it deserves. After that, I have no idea. It would be a shame if it wasn’t possible to devote the time to ReVamp, but I’m not the only one in this band so everyone needs to be okay with being forced into another band’s schedule. That’s what it comes down to. Everyone in ReVamp has the ambition so we’ll see what the future brings, but if we all want it I’m sure we can make it work.”

Go to this location for the complete story.

Three weeks after the release of their highly acclaimed new creation, Showtime, Storytime, which features the entire show at this year’s Wacken Open Air Festival, Finnish symphonic metal act NIGHTWISH has achieved the following worlwide charts entries:

#2 - Sweden DVD

#2 - France DVD

#6 - Germany (Germany DVD #1)

#11 - Belgium (Belgium Flanders #15, Belgium Walloonia #7)

#40 - Finland (Finland DVD #1)

#52 - Switzerland

#126 - UK

Showtime, Storytime is available on Ltd. 2Blu-Ray + 2CD digi, Ltd. 2DVD + 2CD digi, Ltd. 2CD digi, 2LP (coloured) in gatefold and an exclusive Nuclear Blast Mailorder Edition.

Showtime, Storytime contains the entire Nightwish headliner show, played at this years’ legendary Wacken Open Air – the world’s biggest heavy metal festival. The live show in the front of 85,000 screaming metalheads was directed by Ville Lipiäinen, filmed with seventeen cameras and has a total duration of 85 minutes.

The second disc consists of 120-minute tour documentary Please Learn The Setlist in 48 Hours – also directed by Ville Lipiäinen - with no short of drama or overall madness. Also, there is a 16-minute Nightwish Table Hockey Tournament, filmed on tour. On top of this there are two music clips: ‘I Want My Tears Back’ (Live at Hartwall Arena) and ‘Ghost Love Score’ (Live in Buenos Aires).

The Wacken Open Air appearance was the first of the three final shows of the band’s Imaginaerum World Tour 2013, which saw the Norsemen and their Dutch amazon Floor Jansen (REVAMP) playing of 104 concerts in 34 different countries with total audience of over 1.5 million fans around the globe.

Mastermind and keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen states: “Our darling flying Dutchwoman, Floor Jansen, has been nothing but incredible during her time in Nightwish on this tour, so this is a perfect opportunity to immortalize the current vibe of the band on film! “

For more details visit Nightwish.com.