In a new interview with Steve O’G Rock Podcast, Sharon Den Adel — the frontwoman of the Dutch symphonic rock band WITHIN TEMPTATION — spoke about her appearance at the 2024 Atlas United festival last July in Kyiv, Ukraine. Sharon performed some WITHIN TEMPTATION‘s hits accompanied by an Ukrainian orchestra and a choir. Ukrainian composer Mariia Yaremak created the arrangements for this performance.

Sharon said: “Well, before I went on stage, a lot of things went through my mind, because there were a lot of people involved and everybody had been so resilient. The thing the festival should have been taking place a week earlier, but then the children’s hospital got bombed. That was a reason that they postponed the festival for a week. And everybody at the festival said, ‘We’re gonna do it. It doesn’t matter what we have.’ Of course they’re all Ukrainian bands, but still everybody had their agenda of what they were gonna do next week, maybe play somewhere else. And everybody said, ‘No, we’re gonna do this festival no matter what. We’re gonna do this.’ And I found that so inspirational. I came across that kind of resilience many times when I was there, because I went there two times — one time when I was there for a video, and now this time in July, I went there for the festival.”

She continued: “The thing is that I remember there was a grand café bombed in Kyiv — I think it was called the Crown Café. And I remember somebody telling me about that and said — it was very beautiful, because it got bombed and it was a very popular place. And people the next day just took out their coffee machine, their chairs, everything they needed to have their coffee still on the rubble. They just took a little bit of the rubble away and still had their coffee. Like, ‘We’re not gonna be chased away of our place where we meet, where we are together and where we can find hope and strength with each other.’ And the same thing with the festival that everybody said we’re gonna do this a week later, and everybody said yes. There was nobody backing off. And I’ve never seen that. I’ve never seen that anywhere. And I’ve been a lot of places in the world. And, of course, every situation is different, but still I found it very inspiring.”

Sharon added: “For me, going on stage, I could see everybody was nervous because we had very short rehearsal time. The thing was that I actually was supposed to get a different orchestra on stage with me, but they never appeared. I don’t know what happened to them, and I was never told what happened to them also. There was just a stand-in orchestra and they only had 24 hours — something like that — to rehearse my songs. And I had Mariia on my side, the piano player, and she was trying to teach them everything they needed to know to make it happen. And so she worked overnight. There was a disturbance of electricity, and she still had to try to make this work. And the day that we were rehearsing, we were rehearsing on stage. That was the first time I really rehearsed with them. And then we went to a small concert hall, and we practiced over there. And that was the only time that we had together to practice. So I was a bit nervous, like, ‘Oh my God. Are we gonna get this together?’ But Mariia was on top of it, and she had prepped everybody completely, sending them all the chords and everything, the music paper and everything, days before I came. But they had practiced only by themselves. So this was the first time — when we were actually having the soundcheck was the first time we actually played together and sang together. So that was completely crazy. ‘Cause normally I’ve worked with orchestras before, but that takes sometimes weeks, sometimes even months to get completely tuned into each other. And this was a really, really high-quality orchestra, high-quality choir. I was also a bit nervous because it’s also a place, the festival — like, if they attack people where people get together, like with bombing, maybe it could have been a target. But the moment I stood on the stage, I forgot about all of that because we felt all in tune with each other, in the same frequency. And it was really special, to be honest — maybe one of the most special things I’ve done so far. And maybe because it’s in time of war and you can see those faces, and people were just not like shouting or jumping, but just really listening to the music and really into it and sometimes crying, sometimes just holding each other. It had a lot of impact for me.”

The Atlas United 2024 festival aimed to raise at least 100 million hryvnias ($2.5 million) to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces. More than 70 Ukrainian artists performed on six stages. The program also featured performances by comedians from Underground Stand-Up.