Tarja’s blog #6 – Tour Report pt.1

April 2nd, 2011

My dear friends, it was impossible to post during my Latin American tour.

Whether we were travelling or I had some other activities. I searched for a time to rest whenever I could.

Instead, I decided this time to make a tour report so that you know what was going on. I hope you like it!

PART I

After some days of rehearsals in the DF, the shows in Mexico City and Guadalajara were wonderful and we had so great time with my Mexican fans. It was truly a pleasure once again to perform to you guys. I had missed you! The organization, the weather and the food…all just marvellous. How nice it was to see happy, smiling faces again in front of me, singing with me. I will cherish these moments for a long time, because I had been waiting for this tour particularly very long. I was pretty nervous to sing “Signos” for the first time in DF, but you people, you loved it! Thank you so much.

I just wonder what was going on with one man’s head and heart when he decided to get me these flowers? They are just incredible!

On our day off we visited a tequila brewer called Jose Cuervo in the town of Tequila. It was really interesting trip to get to know the history of that famous drink and how it is prepared still today.

We had to wear these to get into the factory

After our visit we stopped to enjoy real margaritas. Delicious!

We had a great time there and the sun was up for us, actually it was a really hot day. The town of Tequila is pretty small, old town and we got to see how Mexicans celebrate their carnival season.

We were stopped by the local people who offered us food for free and we accepted their offer.

I asked Mike while we were eating how he liked his food and he answered:” it’s delicious.” What he didn’t know was that he was eating crab, which is seafood, which means NO, NO for Mike. HAHAA.

When we left Mexico behind us and arrived to Bogotá, we got a warm welcome from my fan club at the airport. People were so friendly that it made my band really happy after a long flight. The weather was way colder down there than it was in Mexico, but we survived

We had two shows in Colombia, one in Bogotá and another one in Medellin where I had never been before. Actually no one from the crew had, so it was nice to get to know the city. Medellin is a beautiful town in the middle of the mountains

I have to say that we were really lucky to get to play these two shows in Colombia finally, because both of them were in danger to be cancelled just in the last minute due to the technical issues and organization problems.

I want to thank my Colombian fans for being there to support us. Hopefully next time I will have better luck. I am patient.

It was so nice to arrive to the venue in Sao Paulo and hear my beautiful fans screaming out loud when they saw me! I had missed those screams! It made me very happy to know that they’ve been waiting for my return as I have waited to go back for three long years.

My concert in Sao Paulo went really well and the audience was fantastic. At times much louder than we could play, but that’s the way we love it! It was tough though to take the plane early next morning and fly to Rio for a show, but there was so much lovely energy left from the show in Sao, we managed pretty well.

Rio is a wonderful city. It was SO HOT in the concert hall that I almost fainted during my show. I think the amount of water that I drank got immediately out…somehow People anyway were excited and overwhelmed, cheering and singing with us during the whole show.

Even though I had been in Rio many times before, I never had the chance to go here.

It was really lovely experience to see the gorgeous city from way upon and the weather was just perfect for nice pictures.

Also I got a beautiful gift from my Winter Storm Rio fan club. A book of The Alchemist with a dedication for me from my favourite author Paulo Coelho. I am honoured.

The city of Brasilia took us all as a surprise. Very modern and not looking like any other city I know.

I had been only once in this city before and the concert at that time was not as successful as it was now. Fantastic audience and you could say it was hotter in the venue than in a Finnish sauna during the show. We had some time to rest in Brasilia before we travelled to Perú.

with love, Tarja