Poets of the Fall – Viihdemaailma Ilona, Tampere; March 17th 2017

I did consider the Poets of the Fall concert in Tampere as an extra, because it had not been announced with the original tour dates and when it was I decided to skip it at first – yeah, sure, who was I kidding? What I had not counted on was the whole thing being extra-special. The band tweeted afterwards that it was pure bliss and I agree. It was all about the fun! They were given a tiny stage and absolutely made the best of it cheered on by an enthusiastic audience. it was not a technically perfect gig by any means with not enough room for all their lights an average house PA, but none of that mattered, because everyone in the room had decided to celebrate the music anyway. 😀

My original flight had been Friday evening, but I’d rebooked to the morning, so once again I was up in the middle of the night. 11 hours later, at 3 pm, I arrived in Tampere and took a nap first thing. Caught up on editing some pictures and went to the venue rather late. Got there 20 minutes before the meet & greet was supposed to start and found only a handful of people in line. Two more arrived, bringing the total up to seven. The guys were sound checking so I didn’t expect things to start on time. It was really late when Nina finally opened the doors for us and she explained that they’d had trouble with the PA and buzzing speakers. We were in though and the venue was nice, but the stage was one of the smallest this tour. The guys would have trouble not falling over each other.

With so few people I had a lot of time talking to everyone. Joked with everyone about the small stage, chatted about summer festivals with Captain, had an interesting conversation with Marko about studying and talked to Ollie about his work schedule. I love how we have gotten to a point where we talk about pretty much anything after the usual “great show last time, looking forward to this one”. Jari was not there, working with Anna Puu for the night. His replacement was Sami Osala from Sunrise Avenue, but he did not join the m&g.Time went by so quickly and soon the doors opened for the general public. It took a long time for people to arrive though and we did not take our place in front of the stage until way after ten. The place filled up before it started though, just as I had hoped.

The intro started and it took the band unusually long to walk on stage or at least it felt that way. Marko had already sung the full chorus of ‘Shadow Play’ before anyone appeared. The first thing I noticed is that Jani has a shiny new red bass. The guys really did not have much room to move, but they got creative with it and used every inch of available space. That led to some close encounters with them during the night. 🙂 So close in fact that I did not even manage to take pictures with me phone (didn’t bother with the camera). When I tried to take the first one of Ollie he noticed and leaned in closer. Big mistake! The pic is nicely focused, but I ended up cutting of half his head. 😀 Clearly it was not a night for taking pictures. 😉

Early on, during ‘Daze’ or ‘Dreaming wide awake’, Marko started jumping up and down and since nobody in the audience followed suit, Jaska jumped with him. They were facing each other jumping side to side in unison. Meanwhile, Jani was visiting Captain behind the keyboards, playing with him for a while. Much later, during ‘War’, he moved from there onwards to stand behind the drums with Sami, making me wonder how he found even enough space to do it. 🙂 There was a catwalk that lead from the backstage door to the stage and the band made much use of it, at least walking partly up there lots of times. Jaska played there, then backed up to the stage and right into Jani, who was standing in front of the drums at that time. 🙂

I got so many smiles from the guys during the night when they saw me singing along and always smiled back at them with my usual silly concert happy grin. Ollie used the bannister of the catwalk as a footrest all the time so people in that corner got a nice close up view. Then again, everyone at the front had that. The first time one of them stepped up on the cup holder in front of me I involuntarily stepped back. afraid we might bump into each other. 😀 At the start of the game, Marko asked U. if she liked games and held out the microphone to her for a reply. During the solo, Jaska got so close, I was afraid he was gonna hit me with his guitar. He missed the Italian woman next to me by about 2 centimeters when he turned. I was very tempted to touch the whammy bar, but did not dare to.

Marko wasn’t on his knees so much, because the stage was not exceptionally high, but he leaned out a lot and crouched down a few times too. It was U.’s night, he sang to her a lot. 🙂 During ‘Temple of Though’ he walked up on the catwalk, sat on the bannister for just a brief moment, sticking his tongue out and then rushed back to stage in time for the next verse. When he walked off for ‘Rogue’ a woman reached out her hand for him and he hi-fived her which made her scream. 😀 Everyone was showcasing their talent during ‘Rogue’ and pointing to whoever was playing a solo to show whose turn it was. This time Jani was so close I could have put my hand on his bass. Again I backed off a little just to be safe. 🙂

It was warm in the room and must have been hot on stage. Jaska and Ollie made good use of their towels, wiping off sweat. Marko had not even bothered with a long sleeve shirt this time, but Jaska was wearing a jacket all the way through the main set. Granted, it looked great, but it must have been way too warm, considering even Ollie had rolled up his sleeves. 😉 ‘drama for Life’ had me go nuts and jumping along. I just love that song. It also made me laugh because Marko screwed up the lyrics and sang “We’re Poets of the Fall” again in second verse. ‘Everything fades’ was especially and I had a moment of singing together first with Jaska, then Ollie and last but not least with Marko, who turned to me during the “secrets spied, wishes sighed” line. <3

Jani saw me trying to get a picture of him so he stuck out his tongue and leaned in closer. 😀 At one point he stood with Ollie and they were speaking, obviously amused. It was one of the many times I would have loved to be in on the secret. While Ollie was playing with Jaska during Locking up the Sun’, Marko stood with Jani, using his mic stand as a guitar again. I tried taking a mental image of that since I knew I was way too close to do it with my phone. Jaska and Ollie played together a lot and once, when Ollie walked over they looked at each other, signaling “I’m watching you!” 😀 The guys all had so much fun! At the start of ‘Carnival of Rust’ both Marko and Jani stood mannequin still for a while. Then Marko balanced on one leg on the drink holder while singing. Some of us moved a few glasses out of the way to make room for him, but he did not set the other foot down.

There was hardly any break before the encores, just enough for Jaska to get rid of the jacket. When Ollie sat down for ‘War’, the green light pointed at him from below, shone up just under his arm and hit his face. It was a nice effect. 🙂 Jaska had the crazy sunglasses with the lights on again during his solo and looked nothing but cool. Just then, Marko usually stands with Jani, but Jani was behind the drums with Sami at that point. He hurried back though and him and Marko both crouched on the floor together. ‘Lift’ had me jumping again and for a little while, Ollie jumped with me. <3 Captain had a stuffed animal rabbit sitting on his keyboards all though the show. Then he lifted it up and had it headbang along with the music. too funny. 😀 When he took his bows at the end, he brought the rabbit with him and had it bow too. <3 ‘Lift’ was just full of craziness, mad playing skills and everyone getting up on the drinks holder. Jaska did it to my left and when he raised his hands to clap he hit the speaker above his head making it swing. It looked like he was almost touching it with his head too.

‘Children of the sun’ rolled around, we all turned on the lights on our phones as Marko instructed, I shared a last smile with the guys, sang along one last time and that was it. The downside of having a specific song in the end is knowing when it’s over. *sigh* Jani and Captain were hugging with Captain trying to lift up Jani. Ollie shook hands with us. Marko left the stage quickly, but thanked Sami before he did. At the end, all the others pointed to Sami, having us clap for him and we gladly did. His playing was different from Jari’s and not as fine tuned to the songs, but he did a great job! They all took a final bow together, arm in arm. I love it when a show ends like that. Still smiling, I gathered my stuff, having a nice chat with the Italian woman on my way home. That was fun, let’s do it again!

Setlist

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

War
Lift
Children of the Sun

Clearview Finland tour: 7 gigs down, 8 to go. Next stop: Himos