Wishmaster history:
While Oceanborn was the album that confirmed the band’s talent; Wishmaster was the album that brought consideration. After they released a special EP for the eclipse (Sleeping Sun), Nightwish went back in studio to concoct us a third album that would be as good as the second one. People waited for the chance to catch Nightwish out after Oceanborn’s success so they had to be as good to remain credible. The album was a success! Many fans still consider it as Nightwish’s best album! Some songs became “classics” such as The Kinslayer, a song dedicated to the victims of a shooting in an american school, Dead Boy’s Poem, one of the most beautiful ballads of the band and Tuomas’ musical testament. And also FantasMic which is a tribute to Walt Disney (the song’s title is a contraction of Fantasia and Mickey), and, of course, the title track of the album, Wishmaster, which ended most of the band’s shows for two tours.

XIII Bis works the seam:
After Wishmaster, Nightwish was considered as a talented band which started to sell a lot of cds! XIII Bis Records took the most of their success to release two very interesting collector items – the first one was the Wishbox which contains a signed album, a “Nightwish” key ring and a Nightwish calendar too! Limited to 1500 copies, the Wishbox is very hard to find today! A few months later, XIII Bis Records also released a new cd called Wishmastour 2000. The aim of this cd was to allow the French people who used to spend a lot of money in the albums’ imported editions – in order to get the band’s various bonus tracks – to have a small compilation of those new tracks.

Nightwish's Wishmastour:
Thanks to this third studio album, Nightwish saw one of their dreams come true – touring around the world as an headliner. No more constraint like the ones they had as a supporting group. They were free to offer their audience the show they wanted. Nightwish then gave a more than an hour and half show, offering the crowd the best of their first three albums, and an instrumental (the score from Crimson Tide and Deep Blue Sea) in order to let Tarja’s voice rest in the middle of the show. Tracks like Beauty And The Beast knew a kind of revival (with Tony Kakko or Marco Hietala – already! – as guests), or Walking In The Air which was given a quicker and lively rhythm at the end of the song. Nightwish even played FantasMic but, unfortunately, only its 3rd Part. Eventually, the band very often played The Pharaoh Sails to Orion, one of the main tracks from Oceanborn, with the presence of Wilska, who came to sing the Pharaon’s part, on the DVD.