Pre gig hugs, invisible violins and an unexpected handshake

Poets of the Fall – Varastoklubi, Rauma; July 23rd, 2016

The final Poets of the Fall concert of the Jealous Gods tour brought friends reunited, happy fun all night and good conversations before and after the gig. The band was full of energy and the audience, if not huge, enthusiastically went along. The guys looked happy and the sisterhood of fans agreed it had been a blast. There’s nothing like a great party among friends. 🙂

Originally there was supposed to be a concert in Vantaa on Friday, but it got canceled so we made the best of it and went to Rauma a day early instead.The trip there was long, but entertaining since I met D. and A. at the bus station in Helsinki and they kept me good company on the way there. Our bus was late, but when we finally arrived we were greeted by O., S. and E. who had been waiting for us at the hotel. It was O.’s birthday so we proceeded to the bar right after check in and had a few drinks on her. When they kicked us out of the bar, the party continued in E. and D.’s room, but that’s another story for another day. 😉

The next day started with breakfast, a walk and waiting for G. and S. to arrive. We went for lunch, relaxed and made our way to the venue around 6 pm. Only S. and O. had gone early and been alone until shortly before we got there. We found four people in line at 6 and were soon joined by Z. and her friend. Just as I was busy hugging Z. Marko arrived and chatted with us for a bit. It was nice, relaxed and funny with us joking about him being stuck out there with us, because the venue’s doors were closed and him telling us they had been recording the new album the previous day and he had recently picked up playing the violin so we might hear it on there. He joked it was revenge for Ollie and Jaska playing guitar on the tour bus all the time. 😉 The conversation ended with a round of hugs for us before he went in for soundcheck.

More waiting, more people, the usual. Once we got in, our group filled the front row and I ended up on the far left, in front of Ollie, just where I like to be. S. was to my left, D., A., E. and G. to my right. S., O. and Z. were on the right side. The gig started early, at 10 and while we waited we made plans to play invisible violins and other instruments during the ‘Late Goodbye’ chorus, just for the fun of it. Chatting was a bit difficult, because the music was loud, but at least they played good music.

When someone from the venue walked on stage and opened the curtains, we all turned our attention there. Soon the intro started playing and as the guys stepped onto the stage all worries disappeared. It’s amazing what music can do for you. 🙂 For the last time this summer the kicked the show off with ‘Daze’ and here I was dancing along from the first moment. It took a little bit for the sound to be adjusted so I could actually hear Marko well, but knowing the lyrics this didn’t matter much. There was so much happiness everywhere. I loved looking at my friends, seeing their faces light up and looking at the same smiles reflected on the guy’s faces. They always tell us how nice it is to see familiar faces in the crowd and it shows. It was obvious they were happy to see us and enjoyed playing the show.

Since Ollie was right in front of me, I spent a lot of time watching him and we looked at each other quite often. He smiled when I stated jumping during ‘Locking up the sun’ – it was a smile of recognition, saying “I knew you were gonna do that”. Yep, I’m predictable when it comes to certain songs. 😉 This night, I did not have to “turn back time” with my hand on my own: A., D. and E. did it with me. 🙂 We rocked out to ‘Locking up the sun’, the listened and swayed along to ‘Temple of Thought’ only to rock out again during ‘Rogue’. 😀

Jani was in a zone as he is though often, lost in the music, but with a huge smile on his face. I had a great view of Captain and Jari too and loved watching them. With Jaska being on the other side of a stage I had difficulties watching him at times and apparently he didn’t see me until he walked over to play with Ollie. He spotted me, I smiled up at him and he spontaneously shook my hand. That was such a sweet gesture. <3 Marko was up to his usual shenanigans all night, teasing the others, making connections with the fans. He spent a lot of time on the floor on his knees, singing to people from there. 🙂

The guys were in great from and all the songs were brilliant. Had so much fun dancing, jumping and exchanging looks with my friends around me that I’m quite sure I missed some of the action on stage. And there was lots of action going on. everyone seemed to want to play with everyone else, leaning on too each other, chasing and teasing and laughing all the time. The good mood just seemed to increase by the minute and each one of us got a song or a few they were specially happy about. It was a good setlist that gave us the party must of us had been looking for.

‘Miss Impossible’ was probably the song that brought on most dancing, but every song was received well that night. During one song, I don’t remember which, Marko took a hold of E.’s hands and danced with her. It was cute! 🙂  ‘Late Goodbye’ brought the most laughter, because one guy on the left was loudly and enthusiastically singing along. We all did, but he outsang us all. It wasn’t exactly pretty, but heartfelt. Ollie could not stop smiling. The five of us played our invisible instruments and violins as planned too, but nobody really noticed, so we were the only ones laughing at that.

After they walked off stage we loudly demanded their return, but at first only Marko showed up. He wondered if he had to do it all on his own now, but finally, after much yelling from our side, Ollie joined him. Only when he proceeded to take over the keyboards, Captain appeared to great cheers and finally we managed to call Jani, Jari and Jaska back as well.

The encores started with a beautiful version of ‘Sleep’, before giving us more rock songs with ‘Dreaming wide awake’ and ‘Lift’. At this point of the gig I always feel a twinge of sadness, because I know it will be over soon, but then I get too busy jumping and dancing to remember. 😀 By now I was sweating buckets, but so did everyone else. 😀 With ‘Carnival of Rust’ they sent us home – one last time of singing along, one last smile, a drumstick for E. and they were gone. With the outro playing I slowly came back to earth, happy to be there.

Our group gathered, had some fun goofing around with the drumstick: G. and E. holding it and Z. doing the limbo, then all of us dancing around it. We smiled and laughed and hugged and after briefly saying hello to Nina we walked out, most of us ending the night with drinks at a bar and later, again, at the hotel. all of us were tired but happy at breakfast the next morning when we said goodbye. It was a blast, miss you already. Thank you all for the great company and thank you, Poets of the Fall for the amazing music. See you on the Clearview tour!

Setlist (to the best of my recollection)

Daze
Locking up the Sun
Temple of Thought
Rogue
Stay
Miss Impossible
Sorry go round
Rumors
Diamonds 4 Tears
Jealous Gods
Illusion & Dream

Sleep
Dreaming wide awake
Lift
Carnival of Rust

pictures from this concert

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