Poets of the Fall – Tuiskula, Nivala; February 25th 2017
On the last Saturday in February I found myself once again in the Finnish middle of nowhere, specifically in Nivala, about 500 km north of Helsinki and 150 km south of Oulu to see Poets of the Fall. Apparently the venue, Tuiskala, is quite well known for concerts and people come from all over the area to go there. It was the usual late start, but we had a good time anyway. The guys powered through their set and when it was over I felt rather exhausted, but of course very happy.
We got a good night’s sleep in Jyvaskyla, had a long breakfast and finally set out towards Nivala around noon. an uneventful drive got us there by 2:30 pm and we spent the afternoon relaxing and having dinner. It was a beautiful, cold winter day. S. and I met up with H. in the evening and drove to the venue. We usually walk, but having a car made us lazy. 😉 We were the first to arrive and stayed at the burger place next door for quite some time to keep warm. Only for the last 30 minutes we stood out in the cold. The doors opened on time, but inside we had to wait again before they let us into the actual concert hall. It was a lot bigger than I would have expected for a small town like Nivala and there was a huge distance between the stage and the audience. There were, however, boxes in front of the stage so I fully expected the guys to step on those during the gig. 😉
Since we were the first ones in, we got the best possible spot. The venue slowly filled up and to my surprise the concert started at 11:30. Nice! What wasn’t so nice was the sound. Somehow, one of the speakers on the left seemed to be broken. Whatever came out of it was terribly distorted. Luckily is stopped working for most of the concert and all the other speakers sounded just fine. 🙂 On the other hand the lights were great, different from the previous day and in my opinion even better. I really like what they have done there.
Whenever the guys have a new setlist, I always spent the first few gigs learning the order of songs. after the previous show S. and I had sat down and tried to figure it out to the best of our memories. We got the first five and the last five songs right, yet the ones in-between were in a different order. it was funny though, because we both could have sworn ‘The Labyrinth’ was not after ‘The Game’ the first night. So maybe they changed it or maybe our memory is not a good as we think it is. 😉
In the afternoon S. and I talked about how great it would be to spend an entire concert just watching one of the guy, but how we could never do that, because there is always so much else to see. sometimes I really wish I could go over the same moment several times from different perspectives and even if that were possible I’d probably miss half of the things that are going on. That is what makes this band so fascinating though: I thoroughly enjoy watching each and every one of them play. Just for the kick of it, it would also be fascinating to have a view from the back of the stage once. Sometime I wonder how it looks like from there perspective, how much they actually see of the audience and how it feels to see our reactions.
Once the concert had kicked off, there was not much time of headspace to think about any of this any more. Instead, I raised my hands to clap along and thoroughly enjoyed the concert. Of course I watched each one of them play, especially when they came close and I kept looking back and forth between them because I did not want to miss one moment of it. Jari and Captain were difficult to see in the background, because there was a lot of artificial smoke going on and the lights, while beautiful, were sometimes blinding as well. It didn’t matter, once in a while I caught a glimpse of them both and there was great energy in the room during the entire show.
The crowd was pretty good that night and everyone looked like they were having fun. Two songs into he show, someone tapped me on the shoulder and when I turned I saw M. behind me. She had gotten lost on the way and arrived a little late. It was an enjoyable night, where S. and I often shared smiles because we noticed the same things or remembered our conversations about the previous show. The more often you go to concerts together, the more inside jokes you share. 😉
Much of the night is a bit of a tired blur in my head, where I can’t remember all that many details, but it left me with a good feeling. The new setlist works nicely, starting out with five powerful songs in a row, that hardly gave me a chance to breathe with all the dancing along and jumping I did. If that does not grab you and pull you into a zone, nothing will. Not to mention that ‘Shadowplay’ is not only a great song to start with, but also one of ma favorites on the album so I get from pre-concert tiredness to full gig mode within seconds. 😀
When after ‘The Game’ Marko said something about doing a acoustic song, I thought for a moment they might have added something to the set, but he was referring to ‘The Labyrinth’. It was so beautiful, it brought me close to tears and could have easily made me drift off into my own world, where sometimes dark thoughts await me. However, ‘Drama for Life’ pulled me right out of that and brought me back to the present. This song just kicks ass. 😀 ‘Temple of Thought’ gave me a chance to breathe again and always brings good memories. Having ‘Rogue’ back is just pure fun, with the guys enjoying their moment in the spotlight and ‘Everything fades’ reminds of how amazing the first album is.
Too soon we arrived at the end of the main set with ‘Locking up the sun’ and ‘Carnival of Rust’ and once again I wished they’d play longer concerts. On day maybe. Then and there it was time to enjoy what they had, take everything in and collect memories. Each song had made me happy so far and so did the encores which went by in a heartbeat. These last three songs sum up everything that is great about Poets of the Fall: amazing lyrics and powerful music creating a wide spectrum of emotions. I went from being in awe at the perfection of ‘War’ to dancing and jumping with ‘Lift’ (that is just as awesome) to a rush of love and feeling connected with the beautiful ‘Children of the sun’. This! There! That’s what it’s all about! 😀
The boxes in front of the stage stayed untouched for the entire show and none of the guys got closer to us until Ollie stepped down at the end to shake a few hands. When he was on our side, he looked at me, smiled and handed me his guitar pick. The woman next to me reached for it, but he insisted on giving it to me. <3 I had been commenting on the new personalized guitar picks on Instagram, saying I would try to catch one of each during the weekend and at the end I had been given both. Aww guys, you are so sweet. Thank you.
Once again he show ended way too quickly and I did not want to leave. We stayed a little bit, said goodbye to M., got our jackets and went out into the cold. No going for a drink this time since S. had to drive and we had a long trip ahead of us in the morning with an early start. There was not much sleep that night, but as always it was worth it and on the long drive back to Helsinki we reminisced about the weekend. that was fun,, I am so happy we get to do this a few more times before Easter!
Setlist
Shadowplay
Daze
Dreaming Wide Awake
Diamonds 4 Tears
The Game
The Labyrinth
Drama for Life
Temple of Thought
Rogue
Everything fades
Locking up the sun
Carnival of Rust
War
Lift
Children of the Sun
Clearview Finland tour: 2 gigs down, 10 to go. Next stop: Turku