Poets of the Fall – Finlandia Klubi, Lahti; April 20^th, 2012

It was the regular morning flight from Düsseldorf, no sleep on the plane this time, but 5 hours the previous night felt enough. Met my friend N. at the airport where she had arrived in the morning. It became clear immediately that she would not make the track to Ylihärmä the following day with me, but return to Russia instead. Can’t blame her – stranded without a car or driver this is gonna be ridiculously expensive. I still had small hope that there may be another way, but I decided not to worry about that yet and concentrate on the day at hand and the Lahti concert first.

We took a train, arrived to rather shitty weather, rested, went to the Sibeliustalo, met a few people there, waited. Easy front row, bigger stage than the last few gigs. A tweet from soundcheck had shown the stand up bass. 🙂 Went to talk to Petri a bit, but he was rather busy. He sold lots of T-Shirts.

This was an early gig, they started shortly after 9:00 p.m. There was quite a sizeable crowd with lots of Russian girls who had come for the gig. They immediately set the tone for the gig, but yelling much louder than the rest of the audience. It made me smile to see a bit of the Russian gigs imported to Finland. There was quite a distance between us and the stage and no boxes n front of it for Marko to step on. The stage gave him a lot of room to move though.

Even though the guys have their own lights this tour it does not mean everyone is well lit. This time, Ollie was in the dark a lot, at least at times when he was standing in his usual spot. I could see him well enough though and I realized early on that I was not in the mood for taking pictures so I didn’t take many.

The setlist is so familiar to me by now, that I’ve caught myself zoning out at times, just caught up in watching the guys and not even realizing which song I was just singing along to. Weird, but in a good way. ‘Kamikaze Love’ is still a strong opener. If anything it has gotten better over time. Funnily enough, the intro reminded me of the intro to ‘Dreaming wide awake’ this time around.

I have no memory of ‘Dreaming wide awake’ whatsoever, but ‘Temple of Thought was beautiful’. I just absolutely adore this song. <3 For ‘Roses’ the Russian girls threw a lot of roses on stage. Apparently they were meant for Jaska, but everyone was having fun with them. Captain stuck one in his keyboard, Marko tried to place one behind his ear, but it fell off, so he tore it apart, Ollie stuck on one his guitar and Jani on his bass.

For ‘Cradled in Love’ some burning lighters went up in the air. That was really nice. Of course I did not have mine ready this time so I just watched. During ‘Locking up the Son’ I jumped and “turned back time” with my fellow diehard fans. What else is there to do? And ‘War’? I could not quite decide whether I should watch Ollie play guitar or follow Marko with my eyes, so I alternated between both.

My perception of time was screwed up somehow during this gig. On the one hand it seemed extremely short, felt as if it had barely started when they already played ‘Late Goodbye’ and on the other hand it felt slow somehow and I can’t even explain in what way.

At some point I was wondering if the guys were plotting something behind Marko’s back, because there was a lot of walking back and forth and talking to each other going on between the guys. I also saw them pointing side stage and laugh a lot. I was really curious why, but I never found out. They seemed to be having fun though and especially Ollie was in a great mood that night, the smile rarely leaving his face.

During ‘The Lie eternal’ I got an almost triumphant smile from Marko, as if saying “see, I know the lyrics”, because he didn’t mix up the first and second verse like he did in Berlin. 🙂 This audience was great at singing along. They proved it during ‘Stay’ and ‘Illusion & Dream’. I also think nobody raised their glass twice this time. I fleetingly wondered how it must feel like to see all this for the first time. I do remember being very much in awe during my first gig, but that hasn’t changed much. I was also unable to take everything in and could not remember the setlist as soon as it was over, but that has not changed much either. I only know the setlist now, because it has been pretty much the same since the first concert this year.

‘Gravity’ has never been a song I’ve paid much attention to on the album, but I absolutely love it live. There’s something magical about it that gets every crowd going. 🙂 When ‘Late Goodbye’ started I wondered where time went so quickly.

The acoustic part brought out the double bass. The lighting was really bad so I watched happily instead of taking pictures. There were lots of Shakira movements to be seen during ‘Sorry go round’. 😉 I fully expected ‘Someone Special’ next and was taken by surprised when I heard the first notes to ‘Shallow’ instead. This time I recognized it right away. Such a beautiful song. <3 Apparently they had not decided how many songs to play acoustically, because after ‘Shallow’ Jani exchanged a few words with Marko and only after that he put the double bass away.

‘Dreaming wide awake’ rocked the house and for ‘Carnival of Rust’, Jaska picked up the remaining roses, held one between his teeth and “fed” one each to Ollie and Jani too. Marko walked off stage after the song and Jani did the band introduction. I asked myself if they were going to skip ‘Lift’ tonight, but they did not, they just dragged ‘Carnival of Rust’ out a little longer. Marko returned with the first notes of Lift and the show was brought to a powerful end. Just amazing. 😀

We had been hoping to see the guys after the gig, because it had been comparably early, but no such luck. Only Jani showed up briefly, but was in much of a hurry. Sometimes it’s just not happening and the guys are only human. What counts is that the concert was great and they have never disappointed me in that respect. 🙂

I chatted with the Cheerios for a while then left with N. and S. At our hotel, we looked at pictures, chatted into the night and finally got some sleep. I hope we all dreamed happy dreams about good music and concerts. I know I did.

11 gigs down, 5 to go. Next stop: Ylihärmä

Setlist

Kamikaze Love
Diamonds for Tears
Temple of Thought
Roses
Cradled in Love
Locking up the Sun
War
The Lie Eternal
Stay
Illusion & Dream
Gravity
Late Goodbye

Acoustic:
Sorry Go Round (Bossa Nova)
Someone special
Shallow

Encore:
Dreaming wide awake
Carnival of Rust
Lift

pictures of this concert