More infos !

"The Islander" history :
The fans waited for months before discovering the name of the 5th (already!) extract from the album "Dark Passion Play". Indeed, Nightwish likes it more and more to surround their cds with mystery and they give information about their release as late as possible. "Erämaan Viimeinen"’s release, for instance, was announced two weeks before it came out in Finland! For “The Islander”, Tuomas came up with the first news in the last trimester of 2007 when he announced that they had been contacted by the town of Rovaniemi in Finland (or more precisely in Lapland) to shoot a video in the beautiful and typical landscape of the area. Tuomas refused to say what song had been chosen but we knew that the video would be directed by Stobe Harju and that Troy Donockley, one of the gifted guests on "Dark Passion Play", would appear in the video. Since Troy played on several songs on the album, the doubt remained.
Lately, a new series of promo pictures showed Anette with a blue flame in her hand and fans thought that the song could therefore be "7 Days to The Wolves" ("Light The Fire, Feast!"). However, in March 2008, the name of the single was revealed - it will be "The Islander". This song is not really typical for Nightwish and it offers a nice performance by Marco who composed the song.

Five singles already ?
If one look at the discography for "Dark Passion Play", "The Islander" appears as the fifth single from the album. Gossip might say that it is way too many for a metal album, and that the band only is interested in commercial purpose. It is yet be a simplistic way to think. First, let us remind you that the number of singles is essentially chosen by record companies and not by the band. As Tuomas said, if he was the only one to decide, there would not be any single (apart from "The Poet And The Pendulum" that Tuomas would have liked to release) because he does not like to put more light on one song than another.
Besides, it is important to say that Nightwish has several record companies, in Europe only:
- Spinefarm, that deals with Nightwish’s releases in Finland.
- Spinefarm UK, for United Kingdom.
- Nuclear Blast for the rest of Europe.
Each of these record companies can choose their own singles! Therefore, when one look closer at the singles from "Dark Passion Play", one realize that "The Islander" only is the third single for Nuclear Blast! To sum up, we have:
- Eva: promo single only, no release in shops.
- Amaranth: single for both record companies.
- Erämaan Viimeinen: single in Finland only.
- Bye Bye Beautiful: single in the rest of Europe only.
- The Islander: single for both record companies.

The Islander, live :
For the first time, Nightwish plays an acoustic song during their show! This song is "The Islander", obviously! Marco sings the song sitting on a stool, with an acoustic guitar, accompanied by Emppu and Tuomas. Jukka takes advantage of that moment to rest and Anette joins the band halfway through the song to sing some background vocals (even though, she recently did not show up at all in order to rest too, probably). For your information, Anette appeared on stage several times with a crown for this song (“Princess in the tower...”). Lastly, Tuomas plays the theme from "The Piano" several times during this song.