Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Križanke / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 14.10.2009
Attendance: 1500
Ticket price: €30.00
Former Nightwish singer Tarja Turunen, with the release of her studio album “My Winter Storm”, has become a strong enough and dominant enough figure on the music business scene to survive and hold her own entirely by herself, as a solo artist outside her original band.
She’s been out promoting her 2007 album on the road for a second year now, which means the tour is still turning a profit. So we finally got Tarja in Slovenia too. She first played here four years ago, back then still as a member of Nightwish. The decision to hold her show at Križanke, even though it was originally announced for the Tivoli hall, was reportedly her own wish, since Križanke stayed with her as a fond memory from that first Slovenian gig.
Tarja rolled into Ljubljana with a backing band that can boast some truly top-notch musicians. The most eye-catching name in the current lineup is surely drummer Mike Terrana (Masterplan, Savage Circus, ex Rage, ex Malmsteen), followed by keyboardist Christian Kretschmar (Schiller), bassist Oliver Holzwarth Bass (Blind Guardian, ex Sieges Even), guitarist Alex Scholpp (ex Farmer Boys) and cellist Max Lilja (Hevein, ex Apocalyptica). On the earlier leg of the same tour, one of the best bassists in the world, Doug Wimbish, was even in the lineup, but he had to end his work with Tarja because of commitments with Living Colour (new album, new tour).
The band hit the stage twenty minutes past ten at night and dove into a rich run through the album “My Winter Storm”. Down in the pit the sound was pretty muddy, thanks to Mike Terrana’s extremely loud drums. He was set up all the way over on the left side of the stage, slightly behind the front line commanded by Tarja, so we got to admire this drumming wizard’s work from up close. His mohawk is already so big that Mike ties the end of it into a ponytail. Of course it was immediately obvious that Terrana was here for the money. Right after The Seer came a solo spot, so the guy could warm up his muscles (he’d marched onstage in nothing but a T-shirt on an extremely cold evening) and also so he wouldn’t start getting bored too soon. Bassist Oliver Holzwarth came across this time as an equal member of the band, and it was great to see him roam freely from the drums all the way to the edge of the stage. In Blind Guardian his position is sharply staked out, and at gigs by that German power metal band Holzwarth is always hidden somewhere among the monitor boxes, since he’s not officially a member. Blind Guardian only borrow him for live tours, like a hired legionnaire.
Time to dwell on the central figure on stage. Tarja made it clear right away that her voice keeps all its expressive power, charisma and beauty. Her approach, which owes a huge debt to opera school, is simply sold in a popular melodic power metal package. First with Nightwish, today with her solo career. She quickly warmed up the frozen bones with the first Nightwish cover, the excellent Wishmaster, which got mostly the smaller part of the crowd on their feet. Some 1500 people at Križanke got to enjoy Tarja’s angelic voice and an excellent performance. Especially once you moved out of the pit area, a real sonic picture came together, and it was finally easy to notice the work of guitarist Alex Schlopp, who showed the most stage-running of anyone in the band. He also plays a guitar model from ESP that’s awfully similar to the one used by Tarja’s (ex-)Nightwish colleague Emppu Vuorinen, not to mention the sound itself. If you’re a Nightwish fan, you’re a Tarja Turunen fan too. You can’t have one without the other.
Despite the excellent performance, you could feel the band had nothing to offer beyond a sense of bare routine. Tarja rounded out that purely professional approach with frequent chatter between songs, which wasn’t exactly her habit in the Nightwish days. She tried to heat up the crowd with a few Slovenian words too, and she did pretty well, e.g.: “Fanta-sti-čni ste!” Stressed wrong, but she didn’t mix up any letters in either word. Very commendable. All of this singer’s fans definitely got their money’s worth once they found themselves at Križanke that evening. That said, the dynamics of the show dropped, especially in the encore, when Tarja dragged out an operetta medley of songs for too long. Nothing wrong with that, since we’re talking about an excellent singer and it’s only right that she shows off all her power onstage. Maybe that moment in the setlist just wasn’t paced all that well. A bit more partying in the crowd was sparked again by the Nightwish cover Deep Silent Complete, while in the encore she also unveiled a new song, If You Believe, which will officially come out next year on her new studio album “What Lies Beneath”.
The concert, encore included, lasted an hour and 40 minutes. Quality, routine and predictable. No standout moments. What was missing was a bit more volume, debauchery and stage energy, which can be blamed on an overly “serious setlist”. Sure, it’s normal that Tarja won’t ride entirely in Nightwish’s “tracks”, but she still has plenty of room to maneuver and put together a repertoire for the next tour where power metal marches take absolute center stage. Especially once her second real solo studio album comes out. Tarja’s audience is still Nightwish fans, not musical masochists and yearly season-ticket holders of the Ljubljana opera. And she won’t have to play average covers anymore either, like Alice Cooper’s Poison.
photos: Robi Lipej
Setlist
1. Enough 2. My Little Phoenix 3. Wishmaster 4. The Seer 5. Tired of Being Alone 6. I Walk Alone 7. Ciarán’s Well Solo 8. Ciarán’s Well 9. Lost Northern Star 10. Sleeping Sun 11. Poison 12. Oasis 13. Nemo 14. Sing For Me —encore— 15. Wisdom Of Wind/Boy And The Gost/Our Great Divide 16. If You Believe 17. Deep Silent Complete 18. Die Alive
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