TARJA TURUNEN
Scala Mercalli
27 January 2013,В 'Рђrena Рђrmeec Sofia'

words by Christina Dimitrova, photo: Assen Tonev

Everybody loves Tarja. And Tarja loves everybody.

In spite of the circumstances, in spite of her frequent visits to Bulgaria (five times for the last slightly over 3 years, in 3 different cities), her loyal fans will always come to the concert and will welcome her with an almost fanatical love and great joy. It most certainly looks like the feelings are mutual and maybe, if she wasn't already married, Tarja might have become a Bulgarian daughter-in-law.В 

But her Bulgarian is improving nevertheless and she greeted the audience with “Good evening Sofia, I am glad I am here again.” and “Thank you” in very passable Bulgarian.

The announcement that she will be here again with Mike Terrana “next April” (whether it is April 2012 or April 2013 is anyone's guess), inspired wild applause and put an end to the weird rumours that Tarja was stopping touring in the next five years.

“It is very strange and I don't know who came up with this, but many people are asking me and now I want to tell you that this is not true”, said Tarja from the stage.

But let's start from the beginning!
After the dramatic winter adventures of Tarja and her crew who got stuck in the impenetrable Romanian snowdrifts somewhere before the border with Bulgaria (even if they crossed the border, they would have been stuck in the similar impenetrable snowdrifts on our side), the speedy and efficient reaction of the Bulgarian promoter saved the day.

Much to the joy of her fans, Tarja and her crew arrived in Sofia by plane and the concert happened, though with a day's delay.

Contrary to the popular expectations that the support bands are cancelled because they're presumably still battling the extreme winter conditions somewhere on the road, it transpired that one of the bands actually made it through.

It would have been so much better if we were spared their performance, for purely humanitarian reasons.

Generally I always give a chance to the bands I am not familiar with and, more often than not,В I have been pleasantly surprised. This is not the case with Scala Mercalli. The fact that their blend of something like thrash and power is very far away from the works of Tarja is something I am not going to discuss. The bad sound was not their main problem, either. It's just that this band needs some extra rehearsals so that they will learn to play together as a band and keep the rhythm. Perhaps the singer needs to reconsider his singing style and stop trying to sound like Rob Halford, resulting in painful to the ear shrieks and screams.

I suppose that the main reason why the nearly 2000 people didn't run away from the hall and watched with indifference or munched on popcorn and stood in the exceptionally long beer queues was because the lobby was brutally cold.

Thank god, the terrible racket ends within a painful half an hour and the crew hangs a semi-transparent curtain with the face of Tarja.В 

The already bored witless audience livens up and around 21.50 the band members start taking their positions on the stage. The “The Queen of Ice” appears on the stage with a strange crown of twigs which throws interesting shadows on the curtain, and is welcomed by hysterical, mostly girls', screams from the front rows.

The concert starts with the opening song from her latest album, 'Anteroom of Death'. The curtain drops dramatically and the audience starts chanting “Tarja! Tarja! Tarja!”

The band, in which we see the familiar faces of Max Lilja (cello) and Mike Terrana (drums, naturally), as well as the guitarist Alex Scholpp, the keyboard player Christian Kretschmar and the bassist Kevin Chown, pick up a rather heavy version of 'Lost Northern Star' from her previous album, followed by 'Naiad'В and 'I Walk Alone'.

The fans of Tarja are from various age groups ranging from a two-years-old cutie with ear muffs to a bit beyond middle-aged people with grey hair. The musicals tastes, besides Tarja, also vary quite a bit, judging by the t-shirts: there's Slayer, there's Motörhead and Blind Guardian, and Manowar, and Amorphis.

After ‘Dark Star’, also from her last album, follows the usual drum solo of the esteemed octopus Mike Terrana, which gradually turns into the famous ‘Can-Can’ by Jacques Offenbach, which was also performed at the gorgeous concert of Tarja and Mike with the Plovdiv Philharmonic in Plovdiv in September, organised by Tangra Mega Rock.

An acquaintance whom I meet by chance and who hasn't been to a Tarja concert before, comments that Mike Terrana is apparently insane.

The solo blends into ‘Little Lies’, during which the audience is instructed with "Arms in the air" in Bulgarian, followed by the brand new song 'Into the Sun'.

The Nightwish period is represented tonight only by ‘Bless the Child’ and our group comments on the fact that Tuomas Holopainen is apparently an exceptionally talented composer, but maybe made an error to kick out Tarja from the band. Or maybe not.

In the middle of the concert is the usual acoustic part, during which we sneak out for a quick ciggie but still can hear the medley of 'Rivers Of Lust + Minor Heaven + Montanas de Silencio + Sing For Me + I Feel Immortal' – a combination of the more lyrical songs from the two albums of Tarja's original works.

They're followed by another new song 'Never Enough' and 'In For a Kill' and then we start the same old game of applauding and chanting. We don't have to do that for long and get our encore and it starts with another medley – 80's songs in which we make out Belinda Carlisle's 'Heaven Is a Place on Earth' and sing along to Bon Jovi's 'Livin' on a Prayer' with great enthusiasm.

The concert ends with 'Die Alive' and the great hit 'Until My Last Breath', which is written in the best tradition of the aforementioned Tuomas Holopainen.

With a mild hope for another Nightwish song the audience chants and stomps their feet for a while longer but the house lights switch on and everybody rushes into the freezing January night to find their way home.

GALLERY