Poets of the Fall – Pakkahuone, Tampere (Lost in Music); October 5th, 2019

After I was completely unprepared for the last Poets of the Fall concert I had seen and the strange melancholia I’d felt most of the night spilled right over into my blog post, I was more than ready to just have fun with them again and I did. With a perfect spot front row center, a good band before them and no camera I enjoyed watching, listening and just taking part in the show for one evening. The lights were great, the sound not so much, but I certainly had fun. 🙂

It was an early start for me since I had to go fro Nuremberg to Frankfurt airport, so I left my hostel around 6 am. Everything went smoothly from there, I easily made it to my train and was in Tampere in good time before the gig. Since this was Lost in Music festival, Poets were not on until 22:45, but the doors opened at 20:00. I had a bite to eat and chilled at my hostel for a bit before going to the venue around 19:00. I was alone and not 100% sure I was at the right doors, so I walked around to the bar at Klubi to ask. Ran into Ollie and Jani who said hello and chatted with me for a bit. Jani confirmed that it was indeed the Pakkahuone entrance, not the Klubi one. They even introduced me to their manger Mike, who just happened to drop in while I was still there. Now I have met the guys behind the emails. Nice. 🙂

When I got back to the entrance it was almost 19:30 and there were two people waiting. I. joined me soon and we chatted until they opened the doors. I was the first person to walk in and headed straight for front row center. Spent the time blogging and chatting and could not even remember who the first band was until I saw their backdrop. Oh, The Blanko. Yep, I’d seen them before, years ago, supporting Suburban Tribe. While we waited, we heard the band that was playing at Klubi. They were loud, whoever they were.

The Blanko were a lot better than I remembered. Their music was really good and their energy carried over into the audience. I loved their white outfits and how they went just a little crazy on stage. Good fun, good songs, ideal to make time go faster. 🙂 They played for about 45 minutes and even got an encore. Niiice!

Next was more waiting and again we heard the band that was playing at Klubi meanwhile. The crew was getting the stage ready for Poets and Glen, asked to give a setlist to someone at the front, failed completely at throwing it her way. He learned though, crushed the next one into a tight ball and threw it to someone else. :)Eventually everything was ready, the backdrop was up high and the wait ended with the familiar intro. “Whatever you do….”

We had wondered about the setlist in advance. As I’d suspected it was exactly the same as during my last gig on MS Viking Grace. Not ideal for me, but nice to sing along and move to. 🙂 They started with the power of ‘Dreaming wide awake’ and immediately I was going along, singing at the top of my lungs and catching some smiles from the guys for it. 😀 I was so much more present than I had been at my last show and it made me so very happy to be there. I had missed being up front. The audience was much into it and screamed loudly when Marko asked “where are you?” and held out the mic for us to respond.

Straight into ‘Locking up the sun’ with Marko turning in circles across stage and everyone powering through the song. I love that they start into the current show full steam. You can always slow down later. 😉 It made me smile that Ollie made the same hand move I did at the beginning of False Kings’. I think I might have originally copied it from him. ‘Temple of Thought’ was beautiful as always – that song never gets old! Somewhere during those first few songs Tiia came by and shook my hand in between taking pictures. 🙂

‘Rogue’ then gave us a chance to watch the guys do their thing, including some close up looks at two guitars and one bass for me. 🙂 I still find it fascinating to watch their fingers work. When Jani sat down at the edge of the stage and Marko asked us if we had our phones I knew what was coming. I was probably the only guest from outside the country, so he exclusively spoke Finnish that night, but with the regular things he says that does not make much of a difference. ‘The Sweet Escape’ was lovely and I suddenly remembered that there is a French version too – how could I have forgotten? Sadly they probably will not ever play that one outside of France. For the umteenth time I wondered how all those lights might look from the stage. I’ve seen plenty of pictures, which look great, but standing there and watching it must be all sorts of wonderful.

Everyone clapped along into the start of ‘My Dark Disquiet’ – that song has grown on me so much since I’ve first heard it. Especially with the new video in mind it is so much fun! 😀 Many of us screamed the “We’re false kings and bastards” line. 🙂 It was so good to have Jari back, who seemed to have a bunch of fun behind the drums. “Woohoho” Marko let us sing, leading into ‘War’ – that song never fails to touch me. During Jaska’s solo he was sitting on the stage floor, watching and of course there was some hugging going on too.

With full power we raced into ‘Daze’, then slowed down a bit for ‘Late Goodbye’. Since that song has been absent from setlists for so long I’ve started to appreciate it again and love watching Ollie play the guitar on it. <3 It is a great song to close the set with. They returned with ‘Diamonds 4 Tears’, then went straight into ‘Lift’. I had fun jumping around and seeing Ollie fly high with his guitar. Captain had been smiling happily all night, lost in his own thoughts and everyone else looked in a great mood too. We moved along, we sang and afterwards we cheered one last time for ‘Carnival of Rust’. It always makes me a little bit knowing that the show will definitely be over after this song, yet it is such a perfect closing song that it makes sense to put it last.

After one last selfie with the band, a few last smiles and all of them waving goodbye, they were gone. I. grinned just as broadly as I did. I would have loved to stick around for a bit, but I had an early train to catch and could use all the sleep I could get, so we got our jackets and left. Goodnight, see you next time. That was fun!

Setlist

Dreaming Wide Awake
Locking Up the Sun
False Kings
Temple of Thought
Rogue
The Sweet Escape
My Dark Disquiet
War
Daze
Late Goodbye

Encore:
Diamonds for Tears
Lift
Carnival of Rust