TARJA TURUNEN, Kings of Modesty, Furnaze
ARENA MUZIKA 2009
12.10.2009, Universiada hall, Sofia - Bulgaria

words by: Nikola Shahpazov, photo: Georgi Georgiev

It’s hard, nearly impossible to say a Tarja Turunen gig unpleasant. Despite of the inherent negativity in metal (ever since the first seconds of War Pigs and the satanic poetry of Black Sabbath), this concert had more Scandinavian smiles than a 1974 ABBA live as well as constant clapping, messages of love and peace and a teddybear landing into the loving arms of Tarja herself. Being the cynical music journalists that we are, we could but watch all this happening not being able to join in the goth metal celebrations so we analyzed instead:

1. The Bulgarian audience adores Tarja and would be in love with Nightwish forever, their hunger for pompous, symphonic, opera-like gothic metal being quite obvious. Universiada hall is bursting with the enthusiasm of 4 thousand people making it absolutely incomprehensible why there are virtually no gothic metal events in Sofia not to mention any such local bands.

2. The Bulgarian fans are quite tolerant and somehow manage to cheer through the rather apathetic sets of Kings of Modesty and Furnaze – both warm-up bands playing ultra loud and just as clichéd heavy metal with hard rock undertones. For some unknown reason the Bulgarian-Finnish flag that Kings of Modesty bring up the stage wins them heavy applauses, go figure.

3. Tarja Turunen shines with a nearly perfect stage presence and an almost inhumanly strong voice. She makes virtually no mistake during these music packed 120 minutes – headbanging and changing rather elegant dresses all the way through. And even though the pose and self-righteous demonstration of vocal ability does get a bit funny, the Finnish ice queen of goth metal displays monstrous magnetism and it is very hard to judge her.

4. The all-star band of Tarja is somewhat lacking in personality being absolutely overshadowed by the cosmic voice beside them. Ex-Apocalyptica cellist Max Lilja and drum monster Mike Terrana (Masterplan, ex-Yngwie Malmsteen band) share the front of the stage but the cello is almost inaudible in the ravishing heaviness of the bass and solo guitars while the drums are indeed pounding but not quite what we would call impressing, even after the 5-minute drum solo.

5. The sound in Universiada hall is great that night. We hope it would ever be so.

6. We may be cynical and distanced from modern day goth metal yet we are nonetheless impressed by the power pop and opera rock tonight. The intergalactic vocals and instrumental heaviness are incredibly well calculated and mixed together to create one hell of a live.

7. No, we wouldn’t substitute this for a Slayer gig and we might just put on a Selfish Cunt record (just to get some good old British punk feel) or a The Sisters of Mercy album (not to forget what real goth rock sounds like) but we have to say the night of October 12 was fun. Would we go for it again? We’ll think about it.

GALLERY