Sonata Arctica

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Sonata Arctica Videos

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Sonata Arctica Tour Dates

City	Venue	Date		Tickets
Plzen	Metalfest	Sat	Jun 01 / 13	Find Tickets
Solvesborg	Sweden Rock Festival	Wed	Jun 05 / 13	Find Tickets
Wacken	Wacken Open Air Festival Grounds	Thu	Aug 01 / 13	Find Tickets

Sonata Arctica Biography

source: WikiPedia

This entry is from Wikipedia, the user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. If you find the biography content factually incorrect, defamatory or highly offensive you can edit this article at Wikipedia.

Sonata Arctica is a Finnish power metal band from the town of Kemi, Finland. Originally created as a hard rock band, they often include symphonic metal elements, and their later releases contain several elements typical of progressive metal. The line-up consists of singer, keyboardist and songwriter Tony Kakko, guitarist Elias Viljanen, bass guitarist Marko Paasikoski, keyboardist and keytarist Henrik Klingenberg, and drummer Tommy Portimo since August 2007. All the musicians of the band's history except Portimo also acted as backing vocalists. The band was formed as Tricky Beans in late 1995 by Portimo, then guitarists Paasikoski and Jani Liimatainen. The line-up was completed in early 1996 with the addition of Kakko on vocals and keyboards and Pentti Peura on bass. After changing their name to Tricky Means the following year, they released three unsuccessful hard rock demos. After the departures of Paasikoski and Peura, the band decided to continue with only one guitarist and replaced Peura with Janne Kivilahti, before changing their name to Sonata Arctica in 1999 and turning into a metal band. The release of the demo ''FullMoon'' led to the release of the band's first full-length album, ''Ecliptica'' (1999). 2000 saw various line-up changes: Kivilahti left the band and was replaced on bass by a returning Paasikoski, and Kakko was replaced on keyboards by Mikko Härkin to focus on the singing. However after the release of ''Silence'' in 2001, Härkin left the band for personal reasons and was replaced by Klingenberg (who also plays keytar). Under this line-up, Sonata Arctica released the successful albums ''Reckoning Night'' (2004) and ''Unia'' (2007). However soon after the release of ''Unia'', Liimatainen was sent to prison for failure to do his mandatory civil/military service. He was temporarily replaced by Elias Viljanen, who became the band's full time guitarist when Liimatainen and the band, despite being on good terms, decided together that he would not return. Sonata Arctica's line-up has been stable since, and became the longest-running in the band's history; however Kakko decided in 2007 to play keyboards again, in addition to Klingenberg. Under this line-up, they have released two albums: ''The Days of Grays'' (2009) and ''Stones Grow Her Name'' (2012).

Wikipedia This entry is from Wikipedia, the user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. If you find the biography content factually incorrect, defamatory or highly offensive you can edit this article at Wikipedia.