The drama surrounding Nightwish‘s recent dismissal of vocalist Anette Olzon and replacing her (at least temporarily) with ex-After Forever and ReVamp vocalist Floor Jansen just got very interesting.
Both the Classic Rock Blog and the metal blog blabbermouth.net reported that the dismissal of Ms. Olzon was planned in advance, and in a radio interview with Ms. Jansen on Dutch radio Floor disclosed that the band had planned for her to replace Ms. Olzon on tour starting next month, but that the turn of events that happened in Denver last week reeled the timeline way in, and after a text message from the band asking how quickly she could make it to the U.S., she was on the stage performing on 15 hours’ notice.
Comments made by touring flautist Troy Donockley and posted to Classic Rock seem to reinforce the theory in my previous post that Ms. Olzon had become difficult to deal with:
The joy of this adventure was being wrecked and everyone was feeling very insecure. It was seriously interfering with our tasting sessions of the fine wines from the Napa Valley. Outrageous!
We never could have predicted that myself and Tuomas Holopainen would find ourselves on stage, alone, asking an audience of over 1,600 in Denver to vote by a show of hands on whether the band should perform or not. Touchingly we were met by a sea of upraised hands; beautiful – but how surreal.
We are all feeling a squillion times better. Our replacement singer Floor is simply majestic and we are having fearless fun. And on evidence of the ecstatic response to the last two shows, the fans seem to understand that this ‘vehicle of spirit’ cannot be derailed so easily.
There’s no word yet on whether Jansen will become the new frontwoman of Nightwish, with all parties stating that she is only planning to be with the band on tour through January.
As for Tarja Turunen, whom Anette replaced? The Classic Rock blog quotes her from another interview:
Turunen tells Iltalehti: “I would be ready to return to Nightwish – if all the band and management were changed.
“No one knows what I went through over the years with the band. I accept how hard it is for fans to understand my feelings.”
Asked what she thinks of Olzen’s [sic] departure, she says: “It does not surprise me.”
So let’s just say the bridges got burned between Tarja and her former bandmates.
This could also be a word of caution to Tuomas and the rest of the guys in Nightwish as they prepare to select a new female singer: A woman requires a different level of care as part of the band than being “just one of the guys.”
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Steven Buehler