Christmas Tour 2009

Dark Rose wrote:Hi everyone, I came back from Lahti to Helsinki few hours ago and I'm really happy... The concert was amazing!!! All the decorations, music...Tarja herself... It made such a beautiful atmosphere altogether! I am impressed. Although after the concert I was really pissed because of the fact that Marcelo said she'll not come out to people who were waiting there... That was really sad for me cause I had to travel so many kilometers just to give her a gift and take a picture with her... But finally I did it. We caught her while walking out of the hall. So now I am perfectly happy... Now I'm going to sleep, tomorrow I'm coming back home.
P.S. She had one new dress. The second one was from the Halloween concert. And she played a new song, another Ave Maria or sth like that I'm not sure what was the title. I've recorded the sound only since it was forbidden to use cameras. I'll put in on YouTube on Sunday probably.
There were also cameras, but nobody knew where that film will go to. Maybe it'll be somewhere on tv someday? Guys who were recording it said Tarja has paid them to record the whole concert but that's her own decision what will she do with this material later.
Ok, I'm heading to bed now. Goodnight.

suomi_rocks wrote:Jouluyö, Juhlayö, in Tampere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOJSQEs2GWE
Este absolut divina.

Silver_Wings wrote:OK, here goes the report.


Day 1:

When we arrived in Helsinki around noon on Friday, we first went to our hostel, cooked us some dinner and unpacked. Then we checked what time the Helsinki gig would start, our tickets said 20.00 o clock, but the site said 17.30, so we took the sure before the unsure and we got to the church around 16.30 where we found out that there were actually 2 gigs planned that evening, a rehearsal one (exactly the same though) and the official one that got recorded. Although we only had a ticket for the 2nd show we managed to get in, into the first one. They we're checking the tickets that good which came in very handy . We got to the first row and waited for our beloved angel to start. She sang 4 songs, one of them should have been with Veetti but she told me in Haapajarvi that he was sick when i asked about it. The songs were the 3 that were on the cd (i bought my cd over there as well ) and then another one at the end, sang by everyone that was in the show. Don't really ask me what the show was about, cause we really didn't understood anything of it. I really should start on my Finnish again (but I'm planning on starting it again next week with good courage!).
When the first show was over, we just tried to stay put on our places, until someone came to say we had to leave, when we mentioned that we 'also' had tickets for the evening show they became very interested in us. We had to leave our spots anyway, got to the little entrance hall and then some journalist came to ask us some questions for whom we were there and why on earth we came that far. (on day 3 you'll find out the result of this).
Then almost 8 o clock, we got in again. To bad no first rows for us this time, we entered as the first ones, but the first rows were reserved (varattu ) for the family members of people that were in the choir and thing like that. So i think we ended up on row 4. At some points it really became hard to stay awake, cause we hardly slept the night before, cause we left home around 3.30. But we managed.
As mentioned before we didn't met Tarja at Helsinki, we first waited inside for a while, and we prolly shouldn't have done that, cause the left right after the show. Well not to bad, we had 2 other shots in the next days.

Day 2:

We left Helsinki around 9.30 with our car and I think we finally arrived at Joensuu around 16.00 It snowed that night, so we couldn't go that fast as we thought we could, and there weren't really highways in Finland either as we have them here in Belgium. But the trip went fine. We arrived at the hostel. And the guy asked us, are you attending a concert? Cause Kiia stayed in the hostel as well, and some guy from spain apparently also, so I think that the fact that Tarja came to Joensuu was good for his business . We did the same as the day before, unpacked, cooked us dinner and then we went to the church. We arrived around 17.30 Kiia was already there, getting cold I suppose. Around 18.30 doors opened and we got to the first row. I was pretty excited this time, cause this was the first 'real' xmas concert again since last year. She really made some changes in the setlist (i'll post it later on, cause it's somewhere in my bag). The musicians were the same as last year, so i knew what to expect. At some points during the concert Tarja left the 'stage' to let the musicians have there moments of glory as well.
Concert over, now was the question, stay inside or go outside, so we came to the easy solution, lets split up The moment I got to the back of the church outside, she came out and I ran back to get the others. She didn't had that much time, apologized like 20 times for it. Still took more time for us then was intended I suppose, asked how it was, gave a nice hug and things like that. When I mentioned we would come to Haapajarvi as well she said good!, That suits better then I'll have time. So we left to the hostel again, made it cosy and all the Tarja fans ended up watching 'Charlie and the Chocolate factory' along with eating chips, chocolate and drinking hot coco .

Day 3:

Hapaajarvi, we arrived there quite on time, we had a nice cottage with sauna, next to a river so the view was amazing! We thought the gig in Hapaajarvi would be pretty small, cause it's just i little town, somewhere in Finland. But boy how we were wrong, the church got packed with people, some just had to stand at the back, some sat in the corridors, they got extra chairs and stuff like that, but still not everyone could sit. I guess they made a mistake during the ticket sales. It's still a miracle that we got the best spots, cause we were waiting in front of the wrong church door . But no harm done ^^.
Setlist and show was the same as the day before, didn't mind it at all, i enjoyed it again. After the show was over, we asked the Passion Works guy if she was coming out or not, and we got a positive answer, it didn't even took 10 minutes I think so. As usually we were waiting till last, and while doing that Marcelo came to us. "Did you read the newspaper?" We were like oh no, so he got the paper, and on the page about the Helsinki concert we were as well. Still kinda weird to see myself in a finnish newspaper, when tarja suddenly said on my left "You guys are famous!" and then she just went on with the other fans, we asked Marcelo about the Seer LP, it still should be printed, "Soon". Then again on my left "You got a black marker?" So we gave Tarja one, and again she just went on with the fans. Then again while we still were waiting until she got finnish, can you take a picture? So I took a pic from Tarja with a bunch of Fans, one of them said something in Finnish to me, Tarja translated "Take another one" and then to the fans, no worries, she's a pro . (Although I failed taking a fan pic In Joensuu… ^^). And then when everyone left she came to us. I think we really chatted for more then half an hour. The conversation went about everything and nothing actually; she explained us how we should get our sauna on cause we told her we had one, we talked about reindeers and mooses, so funny when the first thing she said was, "a moose is just so stupid" (cause apparently they just stay on the roads and are to stupid to get out of the way when a car is coming). We talked about driving our car to get to the gigs, about the cold, cause the next day it would be like -25° which we never ever had experienced before. She explained the newspaper article, funny way as well, cause she didn't had her glasses so she couldn't read, so she said marcelo, you read it, and then, oh no right, you can't understand that either. So she took the paper and held it up under one of the chandeliers in church (Labyrinth has a great picture of that). We talked about the new album, a bit about the label, about the coming shows (graspop, zlin, moscow). About the weather, apparently she doesn't like the cold, but marcelo does, and that marcelo likes to drive her to the different churches (and she started mumbling about macintosh and raikonen or whatever the drivers names are -> she didn't really like the whole men and sports idea either). ^^ And i dunno about what else. Maybe I just should stop writing.


Some extra useful info prolly:

- Tarja is going to play the Witch Hunt in moscow
- Zlin is with orchestra and choir, when i asked her about the nightwish songs, if they would be the usual ones or special ones, you could see her smiling and saying, "I won't tell you" so i suppose they're special.
- Mike is going to break a world record at Zlin, by playing with 4 bands (Tarja forgot the 4th).
- Graspop is a normal show
- Universal should bring out a single before the album comes out, but she said 'well see' it mostly depends on the goodwill of the record company.

And I think that's about it. Pics will come tomorrow.
-xxx...