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OTHER MUSIC
TARJA IN MILAN
Tenseness starts when i’m outside the doors of Alcatraz club in Milan, all Tarja fans are under fibrillation, between them there are many fans of the old Nightwish, and I am one of them.
There of course couldn’t be missed the same old speeches about the exit of Tarja from the group.
But in that moment all the angst and delusion faded, in a few we could finally listen to the suavity and elegance of her voice.
After a long wait, even inside the club, and after absently watching of the Finnish support band, here it comes the time to fade the light and listen to the notes of Rebel Yell by Northern Kings, talking about Finland itself.
Emotion is high, too much perhaps, payed back by the mysterious intro of Lost Northern Star and by her presence on stage.
She wears a white and black dress, and her smile and warmth with the fans are touchable.
Quickly she passes through the songs, it is time of a new track taken from her new solo album: My little phoenix, for a while I get lost into the lyrics of the song: “She was robbed of her innocence, had no more time to play. She’s only a little girl but she’s stronger than the flames”, and I understand, just at the end of the song, that I am crying, quick tears are covering my cheeks.
I can’t help myself stopping to cry even when Tarja thanks us to be there for her and with a perfect English she sentences “I’m so happy to be able to sing for you tonight”, but there’s no time to lose my head, in fact the gig goes on with the wonderful and catchy Passion and the Opera, a Nightwish classic song coming from their second album Oceanborn.
The atmosphere changes in a magic way, it’s the moment for Minor Heaven, slow and delicate in the first part of the track in which Tarja’s voice is accompanied by an acoustic guitar and a cello.
After that it is the time for another Nightwish track, the famous Nemo, and it can’t be missed Tarja’s red dress used in the same video of the song and in every old Nightwish gigs.
A little pause in between the songs; the group delights us with an instrumental track, and if she would have not been on stage few minutes ago I certainly have had seriously doubted to be in the wrong concert. I stay with my mouth open for surprise for almost ten minutes, realizing that the musicians who are on stage with Tarja are really good and have nothing to envy to the old ones by skill and fame.
Just to talk about some of them, Doug Wimbish of Living Colour at the bass guitar, Max Siljia of Apocalyptica at the cello, Mike Terrana of Rage on drums and Toni Turunen, her brother, playing guitar, keyboards and electronic drums and doing the backing vocals during many songs.
She’s back on stage after another dress change for I walk alone, first single taken from My Winter Storm, a song which initially seemed to say nothing but now I can’t stay without it, from where I am I can see a lot of people who can’t keep from cheering and singing along her and clapping their hands every moment.
It’s the time after that for Ciaran’s Well, with a dancing Tarja who is always elegant even when she makes the horns with her hand; another ballad then, Our great divide, itself accompanied by acoustic guitar and cello, and we must admit it seems we are in a theatre and not in a club for a rock gig.
Finally, for the happiness of many it is the time for Phantom of the Opera, and before singing it Tarja confesses it was just for this song that she started to sing many years ago, I’m melt by her words and I can’t keep from crying.
Her brother’s performance in the phantom’s shoes is surprisingly wonderful, a great voice.
Then The reign starts and in a while it seems to me I am dreaming, few songs have such a relaxing melody, another one is in fact Oasis, totally played by piano by Tarja and sang in Finnish; and her skills to touch the heart of the people surprises me and leaves me numb.
I keep myself awake anyway when Sing for me starts, to me it is one of the most beautiful tracks in My winter storm and I am waiting with curiosity to hear every single note and above all the part with the chorus.
Following the famous Alice Cooper’s cover of Poison, but when you listen to her you realize that she can really sing whatever she wants. Finally the crowd starts to show its enthusiasm, awakened from the dream of the previous songs, and it doesn’t know it will be tested hard, in fact the next song will be Wishmaster. Yes, finally , perhaps one of the most beautiful and representative songs of Nightwish, with that quick power metal rhythm and these vocal parts so high and practically impossible for almost everyone.
But this is not the end, where do you put Die alive? Tarja wears the violet and black dress made for the video and gives the best of her without any doubt, even in the highest notes, far way better than in the cd.
Italian Tarja’s performance ends with Calling Grace, another calm ballad to quiet down the crowd, accompanied with the promise to come back soon to visit our Country.
Smiles and thanks the Queen of Finland as she is named gave us are countless; it makes really wonder if she is really cold as someone described her, or perhaps it’s the warmth of Italian fans that makes our beloved react that way.
Anyway….Sing for me, my angel of music.
My Selene - Roberta(Translated by Nailedtoacross)
Poisonblack- Biography and discography.
This band came to light in Finland in the late 2000 and was born as a side project from the ex Sentenced vocalist Ville Laihiala. Thanks to the birth of this band the previous mentioned Laihiala had the chance to show his talent as a musician, as songwriter and even as guitarist, in fact in the other band he was just the singer even if he had the occasion to write some tracks.
Their genre is similar to gothic-metal; the recall to other old band from which the founder come from is touchable, even if there are huge differences above all in the lyrics of the songs that don’t just talk about death and negative feelings.
At the moment they have hit the shelves with two albums: Escapexstacy (2003) and Lust Stained Despair (2006) came out even in the limited digipack edition.
*This is the tracklist for "Escapexstacy"*
01. The Glow Of The Flames
02. Love Infernal
03. The State
04. All Else Is Hollow
05. In Lust
06. The Exciter
07. Lay Your Heart To Rest
08. With Her I Die
09. Illusion/Delusion
10. The Kiss Of Death
*Tracklist "Lust Stained Despair"*
01. Nothing Else Remains
02. Hollow Be My Name
03. The Darkest Lie
04. Rush
05. Nail
06. Raivotar
07. Soul In Flames
08. Pain Becomes Me
09. Never Enough
10. Love Controlled Despair
11. The Living Dead
12. Bleeding Into You(presente all'interno della versione digipack)
The actual members of the band are:
Ville Laihiala - voce / chitarra
Janne Markus - chitarra
Marco Sneck - tastiere
Antti Remes - basso
Tarmo Kanerva - batteria
However, in the firs album, the singer is Juha-Pekka Leppaluoto, former singer now of the Charon, another Finnish group. Other ex-members are Janne Kukkonen (bass) and Janne Dahlgren (guitar).
With his particular voice, Juha-Pekka Leppaluoto succeeded to give a various footprint to the songs in the album, Laihiala had the collaboration of the previous one mentioned to write lyrics and music of several tracks.
The most famous tracks of this band are “Love Infernal” from which has been taken a videoclip , the really romantic “With her I die”, Rush (another videoclip) and the melancholic and beautiful “Pain becomes me”; even if the chose of the tracks hasn’t been easy for me, I consider both albums two little masterpieces.
There are differences for sure between the two, basically in the musical field: the first album is more sperimental, the second one is harder and fast.
Unfortunately this band hasn’t been too many times here in Italy. We can remember their appearances with Lacuna Coil where they opened their concerts in 2006. Last year have been to Evolution Festival. They are really active in their country instead, where they regularly play.
Next July they will be on Oulu for a concert and next april 2009 they will be in Greece to support another Finnish band, Amorphis.
The new album of the band will come out in Europe the next September and it will be named “A new heavy day”, the first single will be “Left behind”; the track is already available on their MySpace page.
This will be the tracklist of the next album:
- Intro
- Diane
- Left behind
- Bear the cross
- A dead heavy day
- Me myself and I
- X
- Human-compost
- The days between
- Hatelove
- Low life
- Only you can tear me apart
As my personal considerations , during their live shows Laihiala covers his roles in a very peculiar way, he’s a good guitarist and he has a good voice, even if sometimes he willingly clashes a bit.
I had the occasion to see few of their live performances, but the one I’ve seen have been enough to convince me they are good musicians and are able to give an incredible strength to the audience.
Official site
http://www.poisonblack.com/cms/?page=home
Myspace
http://www.myspace.com/officialpoisonblack
*8lovesrequiem6* - Cristina(translated by Nailedtoacross)
13.4.08 –AT THE COURT OF ROY KHAN
Spring, this time, played a bad joke to the ones that, like me, were waiting for hours and hours outside the Alcatraz club.
Although it was April 13th , a cold wind was blowing but us who were waiting with terrible patience the opening of the gates, seem not to give attention to it, perhaps because we were warmed by the continuous wandering of two of the band members inside and outside the club.
At 19.00 finally we leave the cold and the wind outside and enter, without people pushing us, the club. The stage is the smaller one, the club is torn in two sides, Kamelot are not well known in Italy and then there’s no need to much room. With my great pleasure I succeed in conquering the second row, on the left side of the stage, where Thomas will play his guitar in about two hours.
The first group, the support one is called Forever Slave, from Spain, but they are not hot at all as we could expect because they are coming from Spain, despite the good looking of the singer. This is an unknown group and I believe after their performance no one would ever know them better.
Fast change of the instruments and here they are the second support group, the so called Firewind, from Greece, that succeed in give some strength to the thousand people inside the club which was taken away from the horrible performance of the previous group.
They are energetic and involving , captained by the guitar player Gus G and from the really charming frontman Apollo (he’s Greek, how the hell could he be called?) and they give the best out of them, giving a good performance of the songs contained into their last album called The premonition. The crowd is enthused , with screams they call the band that put some more energy in what they are playing. I don’t know very well this group but after this show they surely have one more fan.
The Firewind end their performance and now the stage is ready to be prepared for Kamelot and their instruments. It’s almost 9,15 pm when the lights fade and a beautiful violinist , with a masque, comes on stage, accompanied by smoke and soft blue and violet lights. Solitaire begins, the intro of Ghost Opera, their last album, and one by one the band members do their appearance on stage with a hug cheer from the crowd.
Just Roy Khan is missing, our beloved frontman, but he won’t be missed for long because after few seconds he’s already there singing Rule the world, with all the vocal power he has.
The tracks quickly follow one another, with almost no pause from one to the other. The crowd is what create pauses, claiming the name of the band that is quite surprised of such enthusiasm and devotion.
From my position in the second row, position I defend with nails and bites, I understand there is something like an extension of the stage and the band members don’t hesitate to use it, of course not Casey and Oliver who are chained to their positions. And this situation is really benign, in fact I succeed in shaking their hands. It has been a great emotion, once again a gift that Kamelot did to me in this day. Perhaps it could sound a bit banal but it has been a great pleasure for me, even if for few seconds, to shake the hands of my idols.
Roy changes several clothes, and in the meanwhile the band gives us spectacular solo moments.
“When the lights are down”, “Soul Society”, “Descent of the archangel” and “Center of the universe” leave their place to the wonderful “Abandoned “ that moves me to tears. Then it is the time of “Desert Reign/Nights of arabia”, “The human stain” and “Eden Echo”. On “Forever” the crowd starts to dance and unleash , if they don’t do that at a power metal gig when could it be possible to do it?
The crowd claims with cheers and screams Karma but our fellows continue with Ghost opera and Love you to death, and after these with a smile Roy starts to sing the worshipped Karma is played, exciting the audience more than before.
After that the guys leave the stage and we stay there no breathing asking ourselves if it is really ended or there would be an encore.
And we are not defeated, we continue to call them with high voices, it seems like a honour screamt with all the breath we have in our lungs.
And the guys come back to their positions, giving back laughs and smiles to this addiction towards them.
After March of Mephisto the gig is really over anyway, each one of them leave the instruments and thank us for the love and devotion, Roy never stops to thank us and we do the same towards him and the others.
And this surely is the thing that shocked me the most, after the perfect performance and all the technical side, their will to have contact with the audience, physical and mental. And we really were just a thing that night, the band with its crowd where no one was the audience but everyone was an active part of something magic and unforgettable: and this surely is the real show I’ve been to that night. Hail the Kamelot Nation!
Kitiara_77 - Laura(translated by Nailedtoacross)
Planned and developed by Mrs Lindstrom with the help of Nailedtoacross, Legolas di Mirkwood,
Shikaia590 and Maia.Editor in chief: Mrs Lindstrom, Graphic Project: Dan[616]
