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Originally Posted by TheGraveDigger
This is indeed sad news to me. Stratovarius is one of my all time favorite bands. During the year 2000 I was just getting into heavy metal. Iron Maiden was the band that got me into the genre. I was into Judas Priest, Ozzy, Pantera, King Diamond, Motley Crue, KISS, Ratt, all that kind of good stuff that the average 80's metal fan listened to. One day my friend Rich played me Stratovarius when we were in his car going to the mall and I was blown away. 'Twilight Time' was the album and I loved what I was hearing. This opened the doors to Blind Guardian, Helloween, Edguy, Brainstorm, Iced Earth and all the great power metal bands that I currently love. Stratovarius to me have created some of the greatest music in the history of metal. I am glad to say that I have seen them peform live in America 3 times (twice at BB Kings in NYC and once at the Trocadero in Philly). They were great shows to me and I am sad to hear that the band was not really getting a long especially during the last one. I will surely miss them but I respect what Timo Tolkki did here. Sure he aired some dirty laundry but I feel it is better that we know the story like this so we know what really went on rather than have maybe false hope that this is temporary and they will be back again. I will forever love this band I am definitely going to bust out Twilight Time tomorrow to bring me back to when I first heard them and listen to all their albums this week.
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This is nearly the same thing for me! It was around 2000 for me, but in my case, I was playing around with the Music Choice channels that used to be on my DirecTV service (have since now using XM for the music channels). I remember hearing "A Million Light Years Away" on there and was thinking, "Holy Shit! That is AWESOME! Now, THATS the kind of music that I want to listen to! Not the typical shit that was being played on the radio at the time!". Like you, it lead me to Blind Guardian, Sonata Arctica (whom I still hope they continue to put out kick-ass albums!), Nocturnal Rights, Kamelot, and many others. Stratovarious was becoming one of my most favorite bands (behind Rush and Styx). Not only that, I thought how cool it would be to get to meet these guys in person. Well, never thought my dreams would actually come true - having seen these guys THREE times - once at ProgPower (which was the reason I went to ProgPower in the first place!) and twice at Jaxx! These are from that Monday show right after getting back from ProgPower in 2005. I thought these guys were really cool and was great to hang out with and chat for a bit. To bad there was so much tension in the band at the time. I thought things were beginning to look good for them. Especially sorry for Luara Porra, having just started with them at the time. He really was a cool guy that loved what he was doing. Hope he get in with another good outfit.
Say what you want about these guys, and yes, I do agree that the "magic" seemed to be lost, which is shame. I had hopes that this band would be back producing the kind of music that got me started with this whole genre in the first place. Maybe, in the end, Timo Tolki did the right thing and simply let things go - I guess it is all water under the bridge now. I am actually looking forward to what he ends up doing with that RR thing now. At the same time, I really do like what Kotipelto did with his albums (I have all of his albums, and still listen to them fairly regularly). Also, I personally really liked the Elements albums, especially the first one. Like what has been said - it is indeed an end of an era. Long live Statovarious.