The 2013 edition of the annual ROCK MEETS CLASSIC European tour kicked off on February 18th in Berlin, Germany and ended on March 17 in Zürich, Switzerland. Backing vocalist AMANDA SOMERVILLE (TRILLIUM, AVANTASIA) has issued the eighth in a series of her traditional tour updates below.

Somerville: "Picking back up where I'd left off (yes, I do tend to get side-tracked!), here's the next-to-the-last video blog / vlog for RMC 2013. I consolidated a few cities and shows from the last leg of our tour, including Wurzburg, Saarbrucken, Stuttgart, Kempten and Regensburg. I hope you like seeing some more of our silliness, farm animal antics, stage rocking and all-around fun! Thanks to Dario and Tiff for the additional camera work. :-) "

Somerville recently checked in from the AVANTASIA's world tour with a behind-the-scenes look at the first three shows. Check out the clip below:

Amanda: "This second tour vlog follows us through our first three Shows, at the PPM Festival in Mons, Belgium and two shows at the Z7 in Pratteln, Switzerland (both nights were SOLD OUT!). I was extremely nervous for the first show, which is totally uncharacteristic of me, but it happens! Haha! The boys were able to help me find my center, however. We met some more great people along the way and also some familiar souls, which you'll see. I mentioned that I was losing my voice because of the fog machine smoke, however that turned out not to be the case because everyone else started getting it, too - so it was a bug. Bah, humbug... literally. Anyway, see, I even babble when I write. But it IS my vlog, so I get to do what I want! ;-) I do take requests, so let me know what you think (keeping the previous statement in mind)!"

Check out the band's complete tour schedule at this location.

Avantasia's new album, The Mystery Of Time, continues to storm the charts around the world, selling twice as many copies as previous albums, including rocketing straight to #2 of the official German Media Control album charts.

Leader Tobias Sammet has issued the following statement:

"To all fans, thank you all for your support! A lot of amazing musicians have worked their asses off to make The Mystery Of Time a timeless piece of art. Is it heavy metal? Is it classic hard rock? Is it epic metal? Is it rock? The answer to all of those questions is 'yes, it is!' It is all of that. I'd call it a piece of music that I put together being nothing but a fanboy myself! It reflects my personal taste, nothing else! I am really proud and thankful. And I also wanna thank everybody who've helped me put it together. Now we are getting ready for the tour and Jesus Christ, this show will be massive! Tomorrow I am gonna meet the rest of the guys to rehearse and bring the Metal Opera on the road again! Playing three hours might be a challenge, but we have to cover six albums, so it would be even more of a challenge to just play two hours and pick the right songs. What I can say?! We'll play a lot of the Metal Opera 1 & 2 and pretty much all of the new album… Plus the highlights of The Scarecrow, The Wicked Symphony and Angel Of Babylon. A lot of people kept asking if we do the whole show in all countries, I have to admit: We can't do the full three hours at the festivals, we can't play a 15 minute track at festivals! Impossible! So, it will be 90 minutes at festivals only, but we give our best nevertheless… Thank you all for your support and see you on the road!"

Updated chart positions include:

Germany - #2

Sweden - #9

Finland - #9

Norway - #19

England - #6 rock, #97 international

France - #51

Netherlands - #85

Japan - #17 international

A lyric video for 'Invoke The Machine', from The Mystery Of Time, can be seen below: