I was very excited about the concert. I was waiting in front of the Kulttuuritalo with some other fans from the forum about 2 hours before the concert. We were let inside an hour before the beginning. First I bought the CD and single and some nice T-shirts. Then we waited in the lobby and met more people from the forum. The atmosphere was great, but I have to admit that I had butterflies in my stomach. I was quite surprised when I saw drums and electrical guitar on the stage. And then I remembered that Tarja said in one interview, that the concert won’t be just classical, but quite diverse like in the album. The tension rose when there was some smoke on the stage and musicians started taking their place. Then a few minutes later Tarja walked on the stage. She looked marvelous, as you can already see from the pics. The first song was Henkäys Ikuisuudesta, she sang on the microphone accompanied with all the instruments. Her voice was awesome and you could see that “in the spirit”, felt the music deeply. After a few songs she announced a short break (she talked in finnish, I didn’t understand everything but I could get the point and my friend translated some things for me), someone from the audience shouted Hyvä Tarja! So she truned around smiling and made a nice bow.
We were all laughing. In the mean time the band played some songs. In the second part, when she wore the white outfit, she invited everyone to sing along with her ( I dunno which finnishh song that was) and made a joke asking if everyone opened their voices She walked down from the stage when she started singing and encouraged people to sing along. First no one was brave enough, and during the song she made a joke sth like: Turunen has to sing solo again (maybe some Finn can explain better this). Then people started to sing along, it was so nice. Since I didn’t know the words I just hummed. It was so wonderful to see her laugh, you could tell how much she enjoys the concert and the atmosphere was amazing! Before the last song from the concert program everyone went off the stage. Then, when I saw her coming on the stage alone, carrying the notes without the map, I knew strait away that something special is about to happen. And when she walked towards the piano, I was stunned, omg she is going to play and sing You Would Have Loved This by herself!!! Shivers ran down my spine and my eyes were wet *blushes*.
Of course the audience was thrilled and they had to do more songs. Tarja wore the beautiful red dress now and looked even more stunning that in the pictures! We heard another version of Walking in the air (with drums and guitar) and a perfect performance of Silent night in finnish . After the concert everyone was clapping standing up and cheering. The fans who were wishing to see her later stayed in the concert hall, we kept applauding. And Tarja came plauding. And Tarja came back dressed in jeans and jacket. We were all so happy! She went at the very end of the stage and kneeled down, starting to sign things, taking pics with fans and greet them :) But we had to go soon, cause they needed to close the hall, and we were told that she will come down to the lobby in 5 minutes. And she did :) It was amazing; she laughed a lot and was so sweet and kind to everyone! She also got the pink elephant from HMTarnus *lrofl* and we also made a group pic with her and us, forum fans She was there for a long time, until we all got our signatures Tarja is indeed, such an amazing person who truly cares about her fans! All in all it was soooo great, I got to meet so many nice ppl from the forum and an Angel I hope you’ll enjoy reading these lines and get sort of an impression how it was like.

by Cosmicsea