Former NIGHTWISH vocalist Anette Olzon has launched her first European tour since 2012, and she has built the entire show around the two albums she made with the Finnish symphonic metal band.
The run opened July 25 at Kaaos Festival in Vaasa, Finland — a homecoming of sorts, given that Olzon fronted NIGHTWISH from 2007 until her abrupt dismissal in the middle of a North American tour in October 2012. The set draws exclusively from "Dark Passion Play" (2007) and "Imaginaerum" (2011), the two records she sang on. Seven NIGHTWISH songs made the Vaasa setlist: "7 Days To The Wolves," "Ghost River," "Bye Bye Beautiful," "Amaranth," "Rest Calm," "Sahara" and "Storytime."
Olzon is backed by a four-piece band of Filipe Duarte on bass and male vocals, Sanzio Rocha on guitars, Kiko Lopes on drums and Vithor Moraes on keyboards — with Duarte handling the growled male parts that Marco Hietala originally delivered on record.
For Olzon, revisiting the material took time and distance. "I think I needed to get over all the bitterness and anger about everything that happened," she said of the years between her exit and this tour, adding that she now feels "the time was right" to "do those albums justice." Her departure had followed disputes over touring while pregnant, and she was replaced by Floor Jansen, initially as an emergency stand-in and then permanently.
Asked about the perennial fan fantasy of a show uniting all three NIGHTWISH vocalists, Olzon was realistic rather than dismissive. "The fans would have loved it if we all could agree and do one show," she said — before noting the practical obstacle: "they haven't asked us."
Olzon has stayed active in the intervening years without leaning on the NIGHTWISH catalogue. She fronted THE DARK ELEMENT with former SONATA ARCTICA guitarist Jani Liimatainen across two albums, teamed with Russell Allen of SYMPHONY X for the ALLEN/OLZON project, and released the solo album "Rapture" in 2024.
This tour is the first time she has put the NIGHTWISH era front and centre on a European stage in fourteen years — and, judging by the Vaasa reception, an audience that has waited that long showed up ready for it.