Poets of the Fall – Lutakko, Jyväskylä; February 24th, 2017

With the UK shows the first leg of the Clearview tour had ended and now, roughly five weeks later, the second leg was starting with a run of shows in Finland. For Poets of the Fall it was a true homecoming after the one off Christmas show in-between all the other gigs. I had been excited about this for two months and when the day finally arrived I couldn’t believe it was finally here. The show was so brilliant and wonderful that already I feel I’m gonna run out of superlatives when trying to describe it. I still cannot put my finger on how they do, but the guys still manage to amaze me, surprise me and make me happy every single time and that’s exactly why I keep coming back. 😀

A big part of my happiness that night was about being there at all, because in the two days leading up to the gig it had looked like I might not make it there at all. Way back in January when I booked the flight I had managed to choose the wrong flight time and not noticed until I received the confirmation. As I often do, I had booked via an online travel agent. It was a KLM flight so I went to their website to see if the flight was changeable. It was, I rebooked to an earlier time, got a confirmation that read “Your booking was successful” and did not think about it any more. On Wednesday night I was up rather late and since it was a 6:10 am flight on Friday I went to KLM’s website just after midnight to check in. I could not. It did not worry me until I discovered an email from Air France (they belong to KLM) in my Spam folder that said they could not issue my ticket and to contact them. Well, I could not call in the middle of the night, so I tried KLM on Twitter where they reply 24/7. Due to storm warning for Amsterdam and flight cancellations Thursday they were busy and did not get back to me right away. The next morning I called KLM and they told me everything was fine and I could check in at the airport. Then, at 1 pm I got a reply on Twitter that things were not fine, my rebooking had not gone through (WHAAAAA? And you tell me NOW???) and that I needed to call my travel agent. Three hours and six phone cals to the travel agent and KLM later everything was settled and I was on the morning flight. Just before I got confirmation I was ready to rebook the whole thing too.

As if that wasn’t enough there was a storm warning for my area of German as well so instead of sleeping a few hours and daring to catch the first train in the morning that might not be going if there were heavy storms I ted for going to the airport at night. Needless to say I did not get much sleep. Plane to Amsterdam was on time and I relaxed. Connecting flight boarded on time, I fell asleep right away, everything was fine… until I woke up about 30 minutes later and we still had not started. Turns out six passengers were missing and they had to take their luggage out of the plane. End result: One hour delay and it wasn’t clear if we’d be allowed to land in Helsinki right away when we arrived. I got extremely nervous then, knowing we had a three hour drive to Jyväskylä ahead of us. Finally made it out of Helsinki-Vantaa airport at 2:30 pm where S. was already waiting for me. We drove straight to Jyväskylä, not even stopping once and made it there in three hours. Arrived at the venue at 6:20 and could not believe we were the first in line for a meet & greet that started at 7. So much relief! After that I knew everything was going to be alright.

While we waited, we hear the soundcheck and the songs I did hear made me very happy. The sound was absolutely brilliant too and I turned to S. saying “I hope the sound is so good inside”. A few more people arrived and I counted a total of 16 just before the doors opened. That was going to be a small meet & greet. Nina let us in eventually, we got ours spots at the front and slowly warmed up. The venue looked nice, the stage was a good size and hight and I was so excited to be there I knew it was going to be great no matter what.

The meet & greet was just really nice. The guys seemed so relaxed and happy and they had lots of time for everyone. I talked to each of them quite a while, learned interesting facts about tomorrow’s venue, talked about the songs we had heard during soundcheck, joked with them and just had a good time overall. Of course there were hugs as well and I must have been grinning like a loon the entire time because I was so happy I made it. 🙂

Between the meet & greet and the gig we had two hours to kill, we were still freezing and the best moment was when I found out that the bar sold tea and coffee. That warmed us up. Time went by quicker than I though it would, the place filled up eventually and thus got warmer. We counted down the last minutes and shortly before the lights went out I pointed to the metal bar between the stage and the barrier in front, saying to S. “Marko is so going to go on that one”. 🙂 Then the gig started and the sound blew me off my feet. Not only was it rather loud, it was also beautifully clear. I really wish it was this great at every gig.

Just as I had hoped, they started with ‘Shadowplay’ – the full song this time. It was absolutely brilliant. The song is one of my favorites on the album and finally singing along to it made me so happy. It was great seeing the guys in action again and I didn’t even know who to look at first, was almost moving my head like I would at a tennis match so I would not miss anything. Eventually I calmed down and just enjoyed seeing whatever or whoever was in my line of sight. 🙂 I loved Marko’s stage outfit which was just a white dress shirt and a black tie. Jani was also wearing he white shirt, black tie combination, but Jari had switched to just a black shirt for this gig. They can wear whatever they want, really, but I do like some outfits better than others. 😉

They continued with ‘Daze’ into ‘Dreaming wide awake’ and the entire show seemed to take place at such a high speed that I never got the chance to think about which songs might be new to the setlist or which might have left out until much later. For now, I was just holding on and enjoying the ride. Early on, Marko indeed stepped out on the metal bar, but it was a bit shaky, so the women standing closest had to hold on to his feet/legs to support him. I lifted my arms up, just in case he’d fall off and at one point he actually held on to my hand for a little while. During ‘Dreaming wide awake’ Ollie was jumping off the keyboard raiser just in time to the “flying deadly high” line.

Captain had mentioned that they had their own lights and light crew again for this tour and that everything would be timed with the music. It was and even though it got really bright sometimes, the light was amazing. It really fit the mood of every song. Kudos to the light designer! ‘Diamonds 4 Tears’ came up next and it made me smile that they still are not giving that song a break after all this time. What made me smile even more was Marko singing the “I know you’re the one” line to Jaska. The look on Jaska’s face was priceless and then Ollie saw what was going on and started laughing. I just loved these guys! <3

“Do you like games?” Marko asked in Finnish and I screamed, happy that ‘The Game’ was still in the set. I smiled at S. who had mentioned before the gig that she hoped they would keep the song. ‘Temple of Thought’ was next and as beautiful as always. It was the one song that gave us a chance to breathe before they continues in high gear with ‘Drama for Life’. I was glad they had not dropped that one from the setlist and sang along at the top of my lungs. In  fact I#d been doing that from the start and already felt my voice wanting to go. ‘Rogue’ was back on the set and gave me a chance to look away from Marko (somehow that was really difficult that night) and watch the other guys. It was so beautiful seeing them work, everyone so concentrated on their playing, fingers moving across strings or keys and the drums being pounded. 🙂

Then, the moment I had been waiting for since soundcheck: “Do you want to hear a song we have not played before?” Hell yeah! It was a gorgeous version of ‘The Labyrinth’, song and played beautiful with almost eerie lights that fit the mood of the song perfectly. I had expected to cry, but did. It did, however, sent shivers down my spine. So much beauty made it hard to breathe. This song alone was worth the trip. <3

‘Everything fades’ came as a surprise. Not only because I had not expected them to put it back on the set, but because I suddenly got very emotional and choked up during it. It just resonated with me at that moment. Then, I had an epiphany of sorts, thinking “This is such an emotional roller coaster”. That is not such an unusual thought for me per se, but what was, was the realization that there are different types of emotional roller coasters – this being external whereas others are more internal. I might be pondering that for a while longer, because it had never occurred to me before.

They ended the main set with ‘Locking up the sun’ and ‘Carnival of Rust’. I could not believe it was that late already. It felt like they had started only five minutes ago. Like so many times before I felt that it was impossible to take in everything, no matter how hard I tried. I loved seeing the guys visit each other, play together, watch each other, loved seeing Captains hand movements, Ollie’s smile and all the little gestures between them. At one point Jaska came over and thew me one of his new guitar picks. I caught it an mouthed “Thank you!”. I had really wanted one of those. 😀

The band walked off and we screamed for more. I realized they had dropped the acoustic set completely and was hoping they might start the encores with an acoustic son, but they didn’t. In fact the encores stayed the same as they had been before. It was perfect though, I had really been hoping they would keep ‘War’. They dropped the beautiful intro though. For his solo during the song, Jaska put on sunglasses with light beams shining out of them. It looked scarily funny and just made me crack up. How on earth did he find those?

It all ended with the explosive ‘Lift’ and the soothing ‘Children of the sun’, still the perfect song to end a show with. I felt so full of love I just wanted to hug the guys again but that will have to wait until the next time I see them. S. and I formed hearts with our hands and held them up, giving them only last big smile before they left. Checking my watch I realized it had been 80 minutes, but it felt much shorter than that. We would just have to go back and see that show again and again and again…. Good thing we will have another chance tomorrow. 🙂 <3

Setlist

Shadowplay
Daze
Dreaming Wide Awake
Diamonds 4 Tears
The Game
Temple of Thought
Drama for Life
Rogue
The Labyrinth
Everything fades
Locking up the sun
Carnival of Rust

War
Lift
Children of the sun

Clearview Finland tour: 1 gig down, 11 to go. Next stop: Nivala