Well I'm a Nightwish fan and Tarja happens to be one of my influences. My name is Diana, I am the lead vocalist & bassist for the band 13 Winters. If you like, you can check us out at 13 Winters @ http://www.myspace.com/13winters or www.13winters.com. I have my personal profile on this profile's friends feel free to check it out or add me if you like.
I edited my profile with Thomas’ Myspace Editor V3.6 !
In February 2005, Nightwish won five awards in Emma-Gala (Finnish Grammy). Among the others they won awards for "The Band of the Year" and "The Best Selling Album of the Year". Tuomas and Marco flew from European tour to Helsinki to receive the awards. The last show in the European tour was so far the biggest gig of their own, in Stuttgart there were 10,001 people watching the show!
In March, Nightwish performed the first time in Japan and Australia; in April and May, they had to have a break because of Tarja's other interests, but at the end of May the band started the tour again by playing with Iron Maiden in Poland and with Mötley Crüe in Norway.
In July, the 3rd single, a new version of Sleeping Sun, was released since the record label had decided to use it to promote the forthcoming collection Highest Hopes. The new version of the video for "Sleeping Sun" was directed by Joern Heitmann and shot in August 2005 in Prague. During the Autumn 2005, Nightwish played several shows and performed in the legendary Hammersmith Apollo Venue for sold out seats. After a short festival tour in South America (in October), the Once World Tour was coming to an end. The final concert was played on 21 October for 11,500 people in Hartwall-Arena in Helsinki. The concert was also recorded to be released as an End of an Era live DVD.
After the last concert, Tuomas, Emppu, Marco and Jukka fired Tarja Turunen, and her manager Marcelo Cabuli. The reason for this was because during the Once Tour their attitude and actions had turned out to be against almost all that Nightwish represents. As one may guess, the news of the firing was followed by an incredible sensation and hullabaloo. Once the nearly ridiculous fuss was finally starting to calm down in the end of 2005, Nightwish was able to look to the future and wait for an adequate singer to be found.
By the end of 2005, "Once" has sold approx. 1,000 000 copies worldwide as well, it has sold triple platinum in Finland, platinum in Germany, and gold in Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Greece, and Austria. The "Highest Hopes" collection has sold double platinum in Finland and gold in Norway by the end of the year 2005.
