Tarja Turunen live at the Tyrol - Stockholm, Sweden (2008-06-01)
By Mike Eriksson - all photographs by Michael Johansson (c).
It is always a good thing to see Tarja Turunen perform on a stage. That is my experience after having seen her a few times with Nightwish, and now, finally, as a full fledged solo artist trying to make it on her own. To me she is simply the best singer in the business today, and I can say that with an experience that goes back to my first steps as a young rocker aged 10 back in 1971. I have seen all the greats and all the giants of rock, they all had their time - and right now, and for the past six years or so, there has been this girl from Finland called Tarja that has just astounded me.
I don´t say that lightly. She is a unique performer in every way. First we have her voice, this beautiful voice that can reach such hights and take the listener on a fantastic journey, actually (on occation) giving me at least, goosebumps. I love it when she rocks and I adore her when she brings it down and meet us singing her heart out playing her piano. Clearly, having once been in an all out rock band such as Nightwish, she is still not afraid to take risks. Her solo album "My Winter Storm" is a nod to the past, but also a brave step into the future to a place where she would like to meet us all. And that journey - her winter storm - has just began.
Also, I think she is one of the most charismatic performers in rock. To me she is up there with Ritchie Blackmore, David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes, Ronnie James Dio and the legends that forged hard rock into what it has become. Tarja moves in a way that I like, she has a report going on with the front row that spreads all across any concert hall and she leaves people with a feeling that they have witnessed something special. Well, they have. Because Tarja Turunen is a special lady, worthy of your undivided attention.
I also feel that she has a sense of style that is easy to like, I do like her dress code. All these dresses. The first time I saw her, back in 2002, she reminded me of Morticia Addams in that old classic television sitcom from the sixties. In the crowd an army of girls all dressed up in gothic garb worshipped her every move on stage. I knew then that Tarja had touched a nerve with the teenagers of the time. But my friends, all fans of classic rock for many years, loved it as well. Nightwish was a great band and Tarja was an integral part of the concept. I think they owe a lot of their success to the fact that they had such a strong singer/character out front. Tuomas Holopainen in a genious, no doubt, but he was jackpot lucky to have Tarja when he created his band.
In 2003 I created a fanzine for swedish collectors called SLICE, and since then I have given space to Nightwish and Tarja in almost every publication that we have published. Three of the covers has featured Tarja, all of them with great photographs by my dear friend Michael Johansson, one of the top notch rock photographers in the rock field (the best guys out there says that about him, so it is just a fact). For the cover of SLICE 2006 Michael photographed her holding a Xenachakram, a famous symbol of female power from the television hit series Xena Warrior Princess. That was taken in the studio in Finland when Nightwish was recording "Once". Since then, we have created an ongoing series of articles with women in rock called Ladies Of Rock, and a growing number of female rockers has been photographed with the chakram now. So far, these shots have been seen only in my little publications, but it is such a cool thing that I am quite convinced that a feature spread in a major magazine is going to appear some day. When the time is right. We have had a lot of fun with this whole thing. To me, SLICE is just a great hobby. I stick the things that I like in there, and I like Tarja, so...
The concert venue Tyrol is located in the vicinity of one of swedens premiere amusement parks, Gröna Lund. You can travel to this place by land or by see, so we decided to act like tourists and take a ferry. We knew that the swedish ship Göteborg was visiting the harbor right next to the Wasa museum, and being guys we just had to see that. The entire area is filled with great stuff from the past so you could actually spend an entire day just taking it all in but we decided to concentrate on the boats and ships - there was even an old icebreaker there - and we actually had a rather nice time in the sun checking them out. I asked Michael Johansson to snap a few shots and I might as well show you one so that you can get a general idea of the day.
Old men, closing in on 50 with rapid speed, need to sit down every now and then, and since I was carrying a few kilos worth of magazines that I was going to give away to fans for free at the venue I decided that I would be better off without the load, so we headed for the venue itself. Tyrol is a classic venue where plenty of stars of eras gone by has performed. It has a nice restaurant, and since the place was open we headed inside and I placed the free issues of LE with Tarja on the cover so that people could just pick them up and then we headed to the restaurant balcony and ordered beer. We had time to soak in the atmposphere for half an hour or so before we were told that the first opening act, Tarjas bass player and ex- Living Colour member Doug Wimbish, was on. Now, a bass player fiddling around for 20 minutes to half an hour may not sound like a good thing, but we had heard that it was so we checked him out. We liked him a lot. His anti-Bush comments were quite entertaining as well. Great musicianship. Tarja could not have chosen better company.
There was a finnish opening act as well, but they were a drag and I don´t have anything to say.
Tarja came on at 20.15 and opened with one of the most interesting and powerful tunes from her new record, a track called "Last Northern Star". Not a very commercial track, but very effective. Michael Johansson took a picture of the bands setlist so you can see what they played here.
All in all a very entertaining set, quite diverse and with a little something for everybody. But it works, the band - Doug (bass), Alex Schlopp (guitar), Mike Terrana (drums), Maria Ilmoniemi (keyboards), Max Lilja (cello) and Tarjas brother Toni on vocals, drums and guitar, is a tight unit. For a first tour, she is setting a high standard that might be hard to top later on, but even if these guys are mostly hired guns one can always hope that they can be available for later tours as well, which could help generate a feeling that she has a band. On the other hand, there is plenty of good talent out there and a little variety should never be a problem.
Tarja mistakedly sang the first word of "Poison" with her mike upside down, which they had a laugh about on stage and in the crowd as well, but she came out of it with grace. I like the fact that when she has a dress change, she also switches microphones so they match in colour. That is one of her treats now.
"Die Alone" was welcomed with a thunderous roar, so somebody must have payed attention to the video although I don´t think I have seen it aired at all over here. Maybe it is the phenomenon of YouTube? "I Walk Alone" has been viewed over two million times as I write this. I actually think that "Poison" could become a hit if they made a video for that, but I know that it is a track that has divided people.
Michael took his pictures, the first three songs from directly below the stage, the rest mainly positioned a bit to the right slightly above the crowd on this slighly elevated balcony. Only three photographers had photo passes but it was OK for everyone to take pictures at this concert, a fine gesture that I hope still remains the same if Tarja becomes a superstar. One of the holders of the photo passes was the winner of a contest from Germany. Fans could send their pictures from the warm up tour a few months ago to Tarjas people and she chose the ones she liked the most for inclusion in her tour programme. And the best picture was awarded with a trip to Scandinavia for another chance to snap some shots.
In between taking pictures, Michael also shot a few minutes here and there and he put a three minute clip up on YouTube for you to watch (cut exactly where Tarja is about to miss the intro to "Poison", bastard!)... So you can see a little bit of what we saw right here.
After the show we travelled into the city by boat and the chatter I heard from people who had just seen the show indicated that people were very happy indeed. So was I. There could have been more people, but the ones that made the effort can now say "I was there in 2008" and be proud of that. I recall small shows with groups like Whitesnake and Gillan in 1981 and 1982 in Sweden that are regarded as classics now, so I will put this show in that category. I do hope that word will spread that Tarja was indeed very good on her own, and that the "fans" of yesterday that neglected the opportunity to see her on this night were the real losers. But, the time has come to build a new career and judging by the crowd I saw here the future is bright.
Now I hope that Tarja will move ahead in this direction and give it some time to grow. And I also hope that her label is wise enough to give her the time to grow, a detail that is not always met from the business people of large companies.
In any case, I had a good time and I hope to see more shows in the future. Count me in.
Mike Eriksson
