Poets of the Fall – Schmitz Katze, Freiburg; October 12th, 2013
As far as concerts go, it cannot get better than this one. Sure, there have been other gigs that were a lot of fun, there have been other times when the band was in a great mood, there have been other audiences that had an intuitive understanding of how to react to the band and there certainly have been nice venues, surprising setlists, great light and great sound before. Yet this one gig was a perfect combination of all of the above plus a few very special moments that make me say: Freiburg was the show of this tour (even though it is only half over).
Most of us were staying at the same hotel so we walked to the venue together and met the rest of the gang at the door. We peeked inside and saw that the venue was rather small. A guy from the venue told us it would be a few hours until they opened. He also went to ask the guys if we could come in for soundcheck, but never returned. I guess that meant the answer was “no”, but it was nice of him to try. 🙂 We didn’t mind waiting. In fact we had quite some fun. D. joked she could read the bible to us, because there was one next to her bed in her hotel room.
For the meet and greet we were around 20 people – it was nice and cozy with enough time for everyone to talk, get pictures and autographs. Once the guys were gone we settled down in front row. For the first time on this tour there was no barrier in front of the stage. 🙂 Since Marko had screwed up Jari’s name the previous night, I had figured to help him and prepared signs for some of us. They simply read “Drums: Jari Salminen” – I passed them out and we all agreed when to hold them up.
From the moment the intro started that night I knew we were in for a great concert. The audience reacted immediately, clapping along well before everyone was on stage. The band drew on that energy coming from us and gave it right back. For ‘Dreaming wide awake’ Marko asked us to sing along which worked nicely and already at the end of ‘Show me this life’ he went into a back and forth shouting dialogue with the audience. He usually does not do that until much later on during the show. It continued like that for the entire night. Everyone was moving, clapping and singing along. What surprised me most about the audience, however, was not how well they rocked along, but how well they listened. Everyone seemed to know exactly when to be quiet – it was beautiful.
The Poets were in a great mood and it showed – they were on fire! Everyone showed off just a little that night (or some more) and soaked up our enthusiastic response. We loved it and they loved it too. ‘Rogue’ was so amazing I would not have minded if it had gone on much longer. When it ended we held up our signs. Marko didn’t react to them, but Jani laughed about it. Later on, Jaska was on our side of the stage, saw the signs still lying there, laughed, picked one up and showed it to Jari. When Marko finally did introduce the band, he motioned for me to give him a sign and just held it up when it was Jari’s turn. 😀
At the beginning of ‘Locking up the Sun’, Marko splashed us with water from his bottle, claiming he could not control it. Of course he went and played Ollie’s guitar, but this night Jaska and even Jani did so too. There were so many sweet and funny interactions among the band members and with the audience. I absolutely loved every second and often just forgot about my camera resting on stage in front of me. Whenever I looked around I saw only happy faces. People were really into the show and we were much rewarded for it – Poets of the Fall are always great, but this night they were exceptional.
During the course of the night my friends and I shared many looks and many smiles. We all joined hands during ‘Cradled in Love’ and for the chorus of ‘Kamikaze Love’ we raised them high and “tore them down” in perfect choreography. Marko sung to each one of us at one time or another. My special moment came during ‘Temple of Thought’. After singing the line about “the meaning of love and life” to G., Marko turned to me and I remember singing “every word you say to make my day slowly dawning” together with him and expecting him to turn away, but he didn’t. He looked into my eyes and smiled while he sang “I want you to know you’re the heart of my temple of thought”. I know I sang along, but I wonder how I did it, because I also know I was staring at him open-mouthed while my brain was in overdrive thinking “wait, is he really going to sing that line to me? No way! OMG, he’s doing it!” It must have only lasted a few seconds, but it was so intense it felt much longer. Chills down my spine indeed! <3 When he turned away from me I put my hand over my heart and felt my knees go weak. It all was very much like a dream. I realized G. was looking at me somewhat concerned so I sent her a crazy happy smile and indicated how much my heart was beating. She later told me she thought I was going to faint. 🙂
So soon we arrived at ‘Late goodbye’, again with a great crowd sing-along and the main set was over already. Everyone yelled and screamed for the guys to come back out. Marko appeared all alone, asking if anyone from Denmark was there. “No? Good, then no one of you has heard this before”. He sang ‘The wind that shakes the barley’ for us solo acoustic. It got so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Flawless, beautiful. 🙂 Ollie joined him for ‘Desire’. Then Jaska was back on stage, playing guitar. Marko asked if we knew what song what song it was yet then improvised something that turned into ‘U and UR hand’ to much laughter and more back and forth singing with the crowd. 😀 Finally Jani was back on stage too and they played ‘Roses’ for us which turned into a full band version with more instrumental improvisation in the end. <3
The rocking finale started with ‘Running out of time’, brought us an amazing version of ‘Carnival of Rust’ and ended in ‘Lift’ for which the guys pulled out all stops. I’m not entirely sure what happened there, but the guys just went completely crazy on stage. Ollie flew high up in the air, Marko danced all over the stage, Jani watched Jaska and Ollie up close while they played. The song turned into another instrumental with lots of awesome solos and Captain even taking the keyboard off its stand and putting it on his knees to play on. When it was over, they were all hugging each other on stage, Ollie jumped up on Jaska’s back and before they left, Captain and Ollie came to shake hands with us. The perfect show!
Setlist
Dreaming Wide Awake
Show Me This Life
Cradled In Love
Kamikaze Love
Temple Of Thought
Rogue
Locking Up The Sun
Illusion & Dream
Diamonds For Tears
The Distance
Late Goodbye
unplugged
The Wind that shakes the Barley (Marko solo)
Desire (Marko and Ollie)
Roses (Marko and Jaska into full band)
Running Out Of Time
Carnival Of Rust
Lift
After the concert everyone was elated, but also lost in their own thoughts, so we had a quiet walk back to the hotel until E. shouted “Would you all stop talking!” and we laughed about it. Most of us didn’t feel like retreating to our hotel rooms. Thus we found a nice bar, had Flammkuchen for a late night snack, beer, cocktails and a great time chatting about and reliving what we had just witnessed. 😀
Poets of the Fall Switzerland/Austria/Germany tour: 5 gigs down, 5 to go. Next stop: Frankurt