HI. I just stumbled upon this forum and thread and hope you don't mind I joined up.
I am a personal friend of one of the members of Nightwish and have some insight into whats going on behind the scenes.. I was fortunate to meet up with most of the band in Helsinki at the Altamullan Road concert at the Savoy and had a superb chat with Troy, Tuomas and Jukka ( despite him being on crutches following an ice hokey " incident". The band were in Helsinki to film videos for the new album and were able to attend the two Johannas' concert... ( which was incredible) .
the New album is now complete as I write this and Troy, TUomas and Johanna are now writing Auri III material.
THe decision to take a hiatus from touring.. " the circus just got too big and tiring.. it's not just the show.. its the rehearsals, the travel, and the sheer size of Nightwish on tour.. after 3 years of not touring, getting back on the road was great, but the circus can be overwhelming.. and as we saw with Marko, can lead to personal pressures that can get too much - we dont want ot break the band... We are human beings after all .. and each one of the "band" has their own side projects , so some time off to work on them is needed...."
The Auri tour in 25 will be on a smaller scale.. I've seen the list of some of the venues booked and they are much smaller than any Nightwish tour venues.. much smaller. The "circus" will be smaller and the sets much simpler too... the bad the three of them.. Kai on drums, Johanna and Mirko Iivaneinen supplementing the line up.. becase T,T & J can't play and sing everything.. and the crew will similarly be much fewer in number. I am not aware if there are any US gigs on the tour ( at the time i had my chat).
There may be some exciting things going in Finland over the year, but mostly it is working on Auri III, ( though Altamullan Road are doing some support gigs for Delaine) and promotional work for the new album...
I'm so looking forward to album 10... but more so Auri III... and Altamullan Road II