It’s almost 7:30p.m. and the doors of Gagarin Music Space are already open welcoming fans from different genres of metal, as there are quite a few differences among the bands of the billing.

British Furnaze opened at 7:30pm. Despite the fact that the crowd was yet not very big, Furnaze had a lot of energy and really ‘smashed’! Known for their original thrash sound, they proved to the Greek audience that even a three-member band can be extremely powerful. Songs from their first release “Lame Brain Society” and from their second one “No Stairway To Heaven” were introduced for the first time to the Greek audience and made a great impression. Heavy metal sound with Judas Priest and old school thrash - Slayer and Testament mainly- influences. The vocalist/guitarist Olivier Vermeersch did his best to shake up the small –yet- audience, while the female presence of Andie Cayne on bass proved that girls in metal ‘got balls’!

After half an hour of unstoppable headbanging the audience started becoming bigger and bigger and Finnish Kings Of Modesty came on stage. Every member of the band has its own style, while the singer presence is the one that reflects the bands’ sound and implies in a way that the band is all about dangerous progressive metal. Finally, my suspicions came true. For half an hour I was trying to protect my ears from the groovy slap-happy progressive metal music. However, there’s one thing that definitely was worth the torture, the vocalists’ voice, a classic progressive voice that obviously hides a great influence from Queensryche‘s Geoff Tate. Despite the voice, the singer sent so many times his love to the crowd through ‘flying kisses’ that nobody seemed wanting to take and he was constantly doing silly gestures.

Hardly bearing King Of Modesty, I couldn’t wait to see the ex-priestess of Nightwish. Time was passing and her majesty would not show up yet. Huge keyboards and a magnificent bronze drum kit, with its cymbals placed way too high, were set up on the stage! One could think that Titans were about to play. Finally, Tarja appears…The crowd raves and shouts out her name. Songs from her solo career inspired the fans that worshipped their goddess. The new “Enough”, “My Little Phoenix”, “Wishmaster” –the first reference of the evening to Tarja’s past with Nightwish-, “The Seer” and “Minor Heaven” covered the first half hour of the diva’s appearance with the crowd singing along, while the already famous “I Walk Alone” was definitely one of the highlights.

“Ciaran’s Well” led to drummer Mike Terrana’s solo, who absolutely nailed us down with our mouths open! Unlimited speed, backward kicks and so much energy and power! Amazing Tarja returned to perform the new song “Tired of Being Alone”, “Lost Northern Star” and the infamous cover on Alice Cooper’s “Poison”, which, to be honest, I prefer listening to with Alice Cooper’s sick vocals rather than Tarja’s operatic ones. Just a brief notice, Tarja appeared in four different and astonishing costumes, each one of which would suit the songs she would sing at the time. The singer then gave her own piano solo performing the majestic “If You Believe”, while Gary Moore’s “Over The Hills And Far Away” cover, which Tarja sang with Nightwish with a huge success, could not be missing from the setlist. The set closed with “Sing For Me”. Of course, the evening could not just end like this, the audience demanded even more of Tarja and that’s what happened. The band returned on the stage with a medley of “My Winter Storm” songs with the addition of the new song “Wisdom Of Wind”, to finally end with Deep Silent Complete” και “Die Alive”.

To sum up, we ought to pay honours to all the musicians who surround Tarja, for being really talented and seem like the most appropriate for her style. After almost 100 minutes of a great show, Tarja and her band said goodnight giving us hope that we will see them again in Greece in the future. Such shows are worth being seen even by people who are not fans of the specific genre.

 
Promoter: DiDi Music


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