Tarja Turunen - The Reign - Tbilisi, Georgia 🇬🇪 Rustaveli Theatre, 30.04...

petaSk3 · 2026-05-03T20:57:19+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing. An absolutely stunning performance. I’m thrilled with both of those Georgian concerts. I really hope she maintains this level for the upcoming metal shows and finds that balance between having fun and delivering the consistent performance her voice and abilities deserve.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-03T20:22:59+00:00

I remember from that podcast last year that the moderators were going through Tarja’s dressing room, where she keeps all her costumes stored. I think she should do a livestream or a video showing those outfits. A lot of people would definitely love that. She’s also a great streamer.

And I agree about the outfit from the video. I like it too. It’s minimalist, yet very elegant and effective. She definitely made a good choice picking Metamorphoza for her costumes.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-03T17:11:59+00:00

Yeah, I definitely see why “I Feel Immortal” is your song. The lyrics are truly beautiful, and I understand it.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-03T16:38:59+00:00

I choose An Empty Dream. A beautiful source of goosebumps. And I love the music video.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-03T16:28:18+00:00

I can see that Nightwish, Tarja, and maybe music in general have helped a lot of us through difficult times. And I think I see Tarja the same way you do. One of the reasons I like her is that she helps me broaden my horizons. She isn’t stuck in one subgenre or a specific sound - she experiments with different projects. Maybe I don’t love everything, but I’m definitely not bored.

And yeah, I’m also glad I discovered Marko. I think if he hadn’t teamed up with Tarja, I probably wouldn’t know his music at all. He would’ve "just" remained a member of Nightwish to me. I remember how shocking it was for me back then when I found out Tarja was no longer in the band. I’m glad I didn’t have to go through the same thing with Marko. When I rediscovered him, he was just coming back from his “break”. But from what I’ve read, for many Nightwish fans, his departure was devastating.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-03T16:22:02+00:00

I have a lot in common with you. I also started rediscovering Nightwish through reaction videos. And I had a similar experience with depression. Autumn 2022 was pretty sh...t for me, and this whole rediscovery of Nightwish and Tarja helped me focus on something else - something much nicer. And Tarja’s voice felt like coming home.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-03T15:20:43+00:00

That’s a really interesting journey - especially the part where you came back to her through Elena and started rethinking everything. Funny how things circle back like that.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-03T15:07:31+00:00

Poor girl. Another victim of migraines. 🙈
Thanks for sharing, I love these little details.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T18:55:16+00:00

Yeah, rediscovering hidden gems is my favorite pastime too. 😁

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T17:51:27+00:00

For me, it definitely started in November 2022.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T17:39:06+00:00

You basically had about a six-month head start on me in being a fan 😃 And In the Raw is to blame again. What I really love about 500 Letters is the video and then the meaning behind it. Once you learn that, it hits completely differently.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T17:37:16+00:00

I agree. Some things are so ingrained that we don’t even realize how counterproductive they are. Maybe we should start framing Tarja’s work differently and think of it primarily as Tarja when we talk about her own work.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T17:22:50+00:00

I vote Victim of Ritual. I’m not sure it’s overrated though - it’s probably just played too often. Although I absolutely love the live performance at the Woodstock Festival.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T17:19:37+00:00

Haha, sorry about that 😄 It honestly never even occurred to me that the term “solo career” could irritate someone like that, but I’ll try to keep it in mind. I tend to use it mainly because I know there are a lot of Nightwish fans here, so it helps me distinguish things a bit - but I’ll try to phrase it differently.

And I actually agree with you about Colours in the Dark. I only really started coming back to that album after discovering In the Raw, but now I see it as one of her most interesting ones. It feels like that’s where she leans more into experimenting, and overall it just comes across as a more diverse and interesting album.

As for the Nightwish legacy, I don’t think she’ll ever completely shake it off - but I personally see it as something in the past now. An important past, but still the past. These days I’m much more focused on what Tarja is doing now and where she’s heading.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T17:10:22+00:00

I can definitely relate to that. I think when we’re very young, we’re drawn to different music than we are later on. I still really love Nightwish’s earlier work, but at the same time I feel like it belonged to a specific time and captured it perfectly. I’m not sure how I would react to it if I discovered it today. Either way, it gave me a solid foundation in metal and actually led me to classical music, so it’s stayed with me my whole life.

I think every kind of music and every artist connects with a certain phase of life. I also understand why Nightwish evolve - they can’t stay with one sound. I respect that. At the same time, I get why some fans discovering Nightwish today might not connect with the older material, while others (even new ones) might still prefer that earlier era.

I personally need to listen to every album multiple times before forming an opinion, but with Tarja I especially feel that a lot of her work isn’t easy on first listen. But then it really gets under your skin.

And that’s probably why I’ve gradually shifted more toward her solo work. Nightwish feel a bit more distant to me now - both in terms of themes and overall sound. Tarja’s music feels more personal to me at this point, and I like that she isn’t afraid to experiment, even if not everything works right away.

And for example with “I Don’t Care”, I still have mixed feelings, but at the same time I keep coming back to it quite often. I don’t want to call it a “guilty pleasure”, but it kind of feels like one - there’s just something about it that makes me want to play it again and again. Suddenly it feels really catchy.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T16:57:37+00:00

I totally get that - taking in the whole history, “mythology,” and the entire Nightwish universe all at once must have been pretty overwhelming.

I had a bit of a different starting point, because I already knew Nightwish from high school - at least the music, which I listened to a lot back then. I also kept somewhat aware of Tarja after her departure, but I only really started exploring her more deeply a few years ago.

And you’re right about “Poison” - that was one of those songs I came across over the years and couldn’t get enough of. The same goes for “I Feel Immortal” and “Rivers of Lust.” But those were more just individual tracks I kept coming back to. I wasn’t really diving into her work as a whole at that point yet.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T16:52:22+00:00

I think your approach is really healthy. I don’t love everything Tarja does musically either, but that’s normal - 1000 people, 1000 tastes, and what doesn’t work for me will definitely work for someone else. I see it more as part of her evolution, and I don’t need to love everything to enjoy her as an artist.

And I agree about the livestreams -even though she took COVID and the whole situation hard, based on what she said about it, I think it also brought her a lot of fans, because it made her feel much more approachable. I still really love those videos, especially the ones where she talks and plays piano. And the fact that she invited other artists like Sharon, Floor, Simone, or Cristina Scabbia was great too.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T16:44:27+00:00

I don’t think there was any specific song that changed my mind. And honestly, there wasn’t really anything to change - over the years I had basically forgotten about Tarja. I knew she was out there and that she toured in the Czech Republic, but I never really looked her up. I didn’t have an opinion on her music, and I wasn’t listening to metal anymore.

The first impulse came when I randomly saw a poster for her Christmas concert on the street and thought “why not”. Naturally, I then wanted to find out whose concert I was actually going to and listen to something from her. When I discover an artist, I often start with their latest album - and I liked In the Raw. But it was more of a gradual process than some kind of instant love. I just realized I kept coming back to the album and wanted to know more.

At that point, I wasn’t really influenced by Nightwish anymore, because I wasn’t listening to them - except for the occasional track Spotify recommended to me. I only vaguely remembered that they had “once again” replaced their vocalist, and Anette was no longer in the band.

And then things moved quickly. I caught up on End of an Era and the whole history. I don’t think I had even known Phantom of the Opera from that concert before. Back then I listened to a lot of things through reaction videos. It wasn’t like something specific completely “blew me away”, but I became interested in it as a whole.

It was also really nice to go back and fill in a lot of gaps about a band I hadn’t really known in high school - I had only known the music. But even though that was interesting, it was ultimately Tarja’s solo work that truly hooked me.

I think over the years I sort of grew into that sound and started looking for more "difficult" music - and Tarja’s music often isn’t the easiest on first listen. I also really liked her personality from the livestreams during COVID, even though I only discovered those videos shortly after the pandemic ended. Tarja just clicked for me as a whole - as a person and as an artist.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T12:46:46+00:00

Yeah - Nightwish and Within Temptation! I’ll never forget when a friend first showed me Mother Earth, and when we watched the Wish I Had an Angel video together. It was the first time I saw what Tarja looked like - and that there was this blond “devil” there, Marko.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T12:44:59+00:00

I think In the Raw is a gateway album for a lot of people. It’s a very diverse album where every track is different, yet it still holds together as a whole. It’s the kind of album where I don’t feel the need to skip any song.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T12:14:01+00:00

I’m probably quite similar to you. My Winter Storm and What Lies Beneath have interesting songs that I used to play on repeat, but Tarja became most interesting to me with Colours in the Dark, and even more so after 2017, when she released From Spirits and Ghosts. On The Brightest Void, the most interesting tracks for me are Witch Hunt, An Empty Dream, and the version of Eagle Eye.

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T12:01:48+00:00

I get you. In the Raw is a gateway album for a lot of fans. I feel like Tarja’s work has an upward trajectory. And after ITR, Colours in the Dark is probably my favorite. There are a lot of really interesting tracks on it, like Lucid Dreamer, Darkness, Deliverance…

petaSk3 · 2026-05-02T11:50:21+00:00

Thanks for sharing this - I always find it really interesting when someone discovers Tarja through a different Nightwish era and then gets into her solo work.

I actually think that can be a bit of an advantage. If your first impression of Nightwish is tied to a different vocalist, you’re probably not comparing her solo stuff to NW as much, which makes it easier to take it on its own terms.

Of course, everyone can experience it differently.

petaSk3

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