Tarja / Temperance / Beneath the Embers, The Garage, Glasgow 1st February 2023

I had not seen Tarja before, and for some reason I was expecting her to be a bit of a diva (maybe it’s the scary pose on the tour poster), but she was engaging and genuine throughout and interacted warmly with her audience, who were never slow to show their appreciation. Her performance is dramatic and theatrical. She has a very expressive face and is also a lovely mover; posing and rocking out but never missing a note and oh what a voice!

The set starts with ‘Serene’ and after that it’s ‘Demons in You’ and that’s when the quality of the band really hits you. Max Lilja was one of the founding members of Apocalyptica (who were in town the next night) so he plays cello, alongside long-time Tarja sidemen Alex Scholpp on guitar and the legendary Alex Holzwarth on drums, who has been in just about every top German metal band at some point. Christin Kretschmar is on keyboards, although he’s equally well-known as a photographer, but most eyes and ears were drawn to Doug Wimbish on bass. Doug has been in The Rolling Stones and Living Colour but I was a bit gobsmacked when I realised he was also the dude who laid down the bass-line on Grandmaster Flash’s ‘White Lines (Don’t Do It)’ – definitely the coolest cat in the building.

Tarja explains that ‘Goodbye Stranger’ is about following your dreams and after her bit, she leaves the boys to an instrumental interlude while she nips off for a costume change, returning in a very stylish shiny black outfit to deliver a quite stunning rendition of ‘Silent Masquerade’. A solo performance of ‘The Golden Chamber (Loputon Yö) / You and I’ is equally stunning, with Tarja singing in Finnish and then English, while accompanying herself on the piano.

Surprisingly, there is a Nightwish song in the set – ‘Wishmaster’ from the 2000 album of the same name, and it just reminds you that Ms Turunen is definitely the first lady of symphonic rock and helped define the genre. Later on, when introducing ‘I Walk Alone’, she reminds us that she’s been a solo artist for over 16 years now and she certainly showcases the best of her solo portfolio on this night.

The main set closes with an emotive performance of ‘Victim of Ritual’ – a brilliant song which for some reason always reminds me of Klaus Nomi’s ‘Total Eclipse’? ‘Innocence’, ‘Dead Promises’ and an epic ‘Until My Last Breath’ close the show with considerable aplomb. This was certainly a gig worth waiting for and I hope we se her again soon. The original and still the best.

There had been some confusion about start times for this gig – perhaps because it was rescheduled from 2020 - and I was blissfully unaware that there was a ‘secret’ third band on the bill until I belatedly wandered into the building and wondered what the great-sounding racket was! It turned out to be a very fine modern metal band from Essex called Beneath the Embers, who were promoting their excellent debut album ‘Condemned’ and had the full attention of a sizeable crowd.

The only song I caught was that album’s last track ‘Fade Away’ which had that brilliant mix of brutal verse and melodic chorus, with vocalist, Lewis Rowland, switching seamlessly between harsh and clean vocals, backed up by thunderous metal instrumentation, heroic guitar soloing and harmony vocals. They have a few dates lined up for April and are well worth checking out – just don’t be late for the party like me.

The support band I was expecting to see, and was very much looking forward to, was Temperance from Italy. This was only the first day of February but remarkably, it was the third time I had seen bassist Luca Negro play this year and each time with a different band – he performed with both Coevo and Revenience on a memorable evening in Edinburgh in January. He and Marco Pastorino have been the core of Temperance from the outset but tonight they are joined by some unfamiliar guests.

This is the third time I’ve seen the band and, on each occasion, they have had a different female vocalist – originally Chiara Tricarico and last time around for me, on a Serenity tour, it was the excellent Alessia Scolletti, but I understand that Alessia was unable to perform in Edinburgh last year and has now stepped down from the band. Stepping in tonight is the wonderful Lina Victoria, who also sings with Sleeping Romance and Abhcan and she delivers faultlessly with charm and precision. Joining her on lead male vocals is Gabriele Gozzi from Eternal Idol and Fallen Sanctuary and the two of them work well together, alongside the third voice of Marco and his familiar left-handed guitar playing. Gabriele was also deputising, in his case for Michele Guaitoli, who will be absent for this leg of the tour, I think because he is in America with Visions of Atlantis, but he’ll be back for the European leg. Gabriele does a great job and one of the high notes he holds is quite sensational. Kudos also to stand-in drummer Marco Sacchetto who fills in well.

Temperance have already built an extensive catalogue, so selecting a six-song set could not have been easy. There’s one song from ‘Viridian’ and the rest come from ‘Of Jupiter and Moons’ and the most recent ‘Diamanti’, including the title tracks of the latter two. There is another album due soon, so hopefully we will get to see Luca again before the year is out – ideally with new full-time colleagues but you really can’t fault the guests tonight and the band played very well. I think they are one of the most under-rated symphonic bands on the circuit, so hopefully the next album will elevate their status even further.