Poets of the Fall – Backstage, Munich; November 19th, 2012
The day started early, too early. When my alarm rang I could surely feel the lack of sleep. Staying in bed was not an option though, I had a plane to catch. Got ready, said goodbye to B. and went to the airport where I met C. Our plane was delayed over an hour, thus we didn’t have barely had time to leave our luggage at the hotel in Munich before we had to leave again.
Just like the C-Club in Berlin the Backstage n Munich is located in a somewhat remote area without any restaurants or even a kebab place nearby. My online research had shows they sold food at the club – unfortunately (as we found out when we arrived) only after showstart. So our dinner was fast food from the nearby gas station. 🙁 Oh well, at least we were the first people in line. =P
Getting into the venue was very relaxed this time. Most people didn’t arrive until shortly before they opened the doors and it didn’t even look as if there were 50 people with VIP tickets. We gathered in front row and watched the guys soundchecking. This time we didn’t have to go behind the barrier to talk to them, they came to us. We talked for a bit before they went backstage. That left us with time to kill before the concert – I spent it talking with N. and A. from the POTF forum.
The audience was noticeably different from the crowd in Berlin, mostly because over 50% were guys this time. The venue was sold out and got really hot as soon as everyone was inside. We were in for a sweaty night. At 8:00 p.m. he lights went down, the crowd cheered and the intro started. Somehow the showstart was slower than the previous night, but I can’t really tell why. Maybe it was just my own tiredness that slowed me down a bit in getting into the show.
Either way, the show was in gear pretty soon and took of from there. The guys got better with ever song. My first personal highlight was ‘Diamonds 4 Tears’ – Marko was leaning over the stage monitors and stretched his hand out towards us, so I leaned forward as well and locked fingers with him for a moment. That was by far not the only good moment though. The guys had lots of fun on stage and the audience was much into it as well.
The heat led to Jani pouring water on Marko’s head, Captain fanning Jari with a towel and Jani being shirtless by the end of the show. It didn’t keep the guys from moving around though, so much that at one point Marko bumped into Jaska and fell down- lots of laughter. All the songs were great, but the best was a slow acoustic version of ‘Fire’ played at the beginning of the encores. The lyrics were changed a bit here and there, even with a “run Forrest, run” thrown in. Especially Ollie enjoyed his guitar solo there. 😀 A fan had thrown a Polish flag on stage and Marko used it to wrap himself up in it. He also told us they’d traveled “a million miles last night” just to be in Munich and jumped off stage to shake hands with people in the front rows.
The longer they played, the more powerful the show got. The audience sang along a lot, especially during the well known ‘Late Goodbye’ and ‘Carnival of Rust’, but also during many other songs and took all the cues from stage to sing along. The Poets visibly enjoyed playing for us, Jaska threw guitar picks to the audience and Jari threw drumsticks. For ‘Lift’ everyone on stage and in front gave their all for the last time. The solos were amazing and Jani even jumped off the drum platform together with Ollie in the end. After the show everyone agreed it had been great.
Poets of the Fall autumn tour – 7 gigs down, 7 to go. Next stop: Cologne
Setlist
Running Out of Time
Diamonds for Tears
Temple of Thought
Cradled in Love
Locking Up the Sun
Signs of Life
Stay
Illusion and Dream
Jeremiah Peacekeeper
Kamikaze Love
Miss Impossible
Late Goodbye
Encore:
Fire (slow acoustic version) + band intro
Dreaming Wide Awake
Carnival of Rust
Lift