On the 1st of August 2016 Apocalyptica played in Moscow at "Vdokhnovenye" arts festival.
The main and the most awaited event of the festival was a huge flashmob on the stage of VDNH Exhibition Centre "Green Theatre" under the direction of World's superstars - artful guitarist and composer Steve Vai and finnish band Apocalyptica.
Kings of the cello and guitar, Steve Vai and Apocalyptica performed with Russian musicians. 80 cellists and guitarists took part in the flashmob. Any musician, either professional or amateur, had a chance to leave an application for participation at the official website of VDNH.
Musicians performed legendary "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin, "Enter Sandman" Metallica cover, and Steve Vai wrote a song called "Flashmob" especially for the event.
Alexander Isakov, guitarist for "The One" band, about the preparation and his participation in flash mob
Screen-shots from the live broadcasting
Press-conference with Apocalyptica
This day 20 years ago the debut Apocalyptica album "Apocalyptica plays Metallica by four cellos" was released in Finland. You also may find that usually 1 October 1996 titled as the release date because of the worldwide release. But still Apocalyptica started to celebrate their 20th anniversary today with the great news.
20 years and 8 albums later, Apocalyptica excited to announce that it's set for a re-release on the 22nd July. To celebrate the album appropriately, Apocalyptica went back to the studio and fully remastered the original album. Typically, they couldn't do without recording a few more Metallica songs to refine the anniversary edition further. So in 2016, "Plays Metallica by Four Cellos" contains three bonus tracks: the band's all-time favorite "Battery", live fan favorite and never before recorded "Seek and Destroy" as well as a brand-new version of the unparalleled "Nothing Else Matters".
The fully remastered anniversary album will be out July 22 and will be available on CD, double vinyl as well as for download and via streaming.
A tour like in the old days: Four cellos, Metallica covers only, all instrumental - and to round things off, the band was able to convince original member Antero Manninen to join them on this tour. The first part of the set will present the entire original album as it was recorded: track by track, four cellos only. The second part will feature other Metallica songs the band covered and recorded over the years. As Mikko naturally is a full band member and adds a great deal to some of the Metallica versions, he'll also enter the stage for some songs.
The following venues are seated only, as the band thought it would be fun to shred instruments in these amazing places.
After putting the new tracks on tape and remastering the sound of the complete album, Eicca, Paavo, Perttu and Mikko decided to shoot a little video for one of the songs together with an old time friend Ville Akseli Juurikkala. It's turned out to be a pure celebration of those early days and a reminder of where it all started back in 1996. If you like, lean back, reminisce, and watch the clip for "Battery".
Apocalyptica has released a new video for a song from 2015th album "Shadowmaker" - "House Of Chains (Kevin Churko Mix)".
The new video is based on live shows of the band and includes some parts of different shows as well as some documentary materials from the backstage and tour.
The video was directed by Sebastian Vogt (Germany), who already worked with Apocalyptica for their project "Wagner Reloaded". He is the director of "Ludwig Wonderland" and "Wagner Reloaded" trailer.
Apocalyptica is celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album "Apocalyptica plays Metallica by four cellos" in 2016th.
The album was released in October 1996th. And, though there is still lots of time left till October, the holiday preparations in the band are well under way. This year, in June, Apocalyptica is inviting their old and new friends to join the celebration on a Turku-Stockholm cruise liner shipboard. The sailing off is to take place on the 9th of June from Turku (Finland). The tickets can already be found at international ticket services.
This week the band has also visited a sound recording studio in Porvoo, where they recorded a few "surprise tracks". It is still unknown, which particular songs have been recorded, but, judging by the instagram entries, this is most likely to be a tribute to their debut album, that is going to contain some old Metallica's covers.