Poets of the Fall – Freiheitshalle, Munich; September 11th, 2022
Seeing Poets of the Fall in Munich was fun, but felt like a bit of a letdown after the absolute highlight in Prague. This was maybe a 7 on a 10 scale, while Praue had been at least an 11. 😉 However, Tom Lumley and the Brave Liason played the best gig I have seen them play and the venue was really nice too. Win some, lose some.
The trip from Prague had been exhausting, especially for A., who left two hours before I did, but arrived only one hour before me and I was more than an hour delayed too. So there was no time to relax or have some quiet lunch, but rather rushing straight to the venue. We saw some familiar faces and while we waited, M. arrived. We hadn’t seen each other in three years and chatted until it was almost time for the doors to open.
Once inside we got really lucky. A bunch of people in front of us had brought bnig backpacks and were forced to hand them in at the coat check. Thus, we scored some good spots in front row, once again on Jani’s and Jaska’s side. P. joined us as bit later and we were all very excited to see the guys.
By now we knew the drill. When ‘War’ (the Edwin Starr song) is playing, Tom Lumley and the Brave Liason will walk on stage, so we cheered for them right away. The stage was nice and wide, so they had a lot of room to move around and made good use of it. They were absolutely on fire and clearly enjoying the gig.
Their show is always full of power and after three gigs I am starting to remember some of the lyrics. Still not much singing along, but I am working on it. Tom greeted the greeted the audience and thanked us for coming early enough to check them out. Everyone clapped along too when they asked us to. It is very hard to resist their energetic performance.
As always, Johnny, the drummer took off his shirt a few songs in, because it was getting too hot. Jake, the guitarist could not stand still for even a minute – always jumping around or kicking his legs up. Billy, the bassist, on the other side of the stage, came over to visit from time to time and they played together.
There was a lot of movement overall, fun to watch and the sound was great too so we could hear them clearly. Tom gave little introductions to the sons and told us what they were about. This time, ‘Shrink’ was my favorite tune of the night.
At he end, Billy stepped off the stage and walked along in front of the barriers, playing too us. Johnny stepped down too, sat on the barrier, leaned back and would have fallen over if A. had not caught him. 🙂 Phew! What a finale.
Setlist
Modern Age
Anchor
Shrink
No Trust
Comedown
Say Nothing
Fake Friends
Crawling
Too soon it was over and we had some waiting time to get through. We watched Glen, checking all the instruments and setting up towels and drinks for the concert. He really seems to be doing all the odd jobs. I was excited for the last show, but at the same time well aware that it would be a miracle to top Prague.
The intro started, I cheered and enjoyed the fact that I had lots of space to move so I started jumping during ‘Requiem for my Harlequin’. I distinctly remember Marko saying something early on that made me smile and shake my head, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it was. 🙂
Through ‘Dreaming wide awake’ I jumped and clapped and watched Ollie to catch the moment he was jumping off the keyboard raiser. Of course one of the others stepped in the way the moment I wanted to tale a picture. 😀 At least I had an unhindered view of Tuomas from time to time when neither Jani nor Jaska was blocking my view and there were no cymbals in the way either. 😉
When ‘Temple of Thought’ came around, Marko lifted up his arms and we all waved our hands from side to side along with him. The sing-along was pretty good too. ‘Rogue’ was brilliant and with ‘Firedance’ I felt I had finally arrived emotionally. “Are there any firedancers in the house?” Hell yeah!
‘My Dark Disquiet’ had many of us dancing and the guys on stage playing full power. While Ollie was doing a solo, Marko stuck his hand under his shirt and I first thought he was gonna show us how his heart was beating, but I think he had an alien bursting out from his stomach. 😀 It was definitely funny. Before ‘Sounds of Yesterday’ he announced that they needed to slow down “Otherwise it get so hot here we’ll have to strip and you don’t wanna see that!” which made me laugh even more.
I spent a lot of time watching Tuomas that night, because usually he is hidden behind the cymbals or his bandmates so I don’t really get a clear view. I very much enjoyed seeing him work. Jaska, too was right in front of me. Poor guy had trouble with his guitar so he switched to a bright yellow Ibanez eventually, which, as it turned out, glows in the dark. <3
Ollie, who had not left his side of the stage much the previous night, came over to our side at one point and played right where we stood. In my head I decided he had been missing us and needed to see what we were up to. 😉 Marko was in a playful mood, fiddled with Ollie’s guitar and apparently changed some setting, because he apologized later. He also seemed to be flirting with someone in the audience, throwing kissed and showing off his butt, slapping it.
With ‘Choice Millionaire’ everyone on stage was jumping and afterwards I was happy to get a break with ‘Chasing Echoes’. “As some of you might know,” Marko said, looking at A. and me, “we have a new album out.” The song is always a highlight of the show and always makes me forget that there is one more before the encores.
‘Stay forever’ brought us more singing along and I think it might have been during this song that Ollie, Jaska and Jani stood in a half circle, playing together and bumping their fists in the middle when they were done. 🙂 Captain got a lot of visitors that evening wit everyone but Tuomas standing with him at one point or another. I saw him raise his hand in the air and leaning back a few times and somewhere during the show he was bowing to Tuomas. Rightfully so.
It felt really long until they came back for the encores, but the audience wasn’t trying that hard either. We definitely had been louder some other nights. Once they returned, however, the party continued as if everyone had just been saving their energy.
The room was turned into a starry night with all the phone lights during ‘The Sweet Escape’ and for ‘Daze’, Marko really tested our singing skills, asking us to sing back to him whatever he started with. We did well, he called it some great singing and wanted to know if we all wanted to be lead singers of the band now.
‘Lift’ brought a final burst of energy and ‘Carnival of Rust’ ended the show as always. I watched for the moment when Ollie switched guitars, him and Glen bowing to each other. 🙂 Too soon, the song ended and they were waving goodbye, taking one more picture with us and walked off. Ollie specifically came over to our side to shale our hands before he left. <3
We met up with M. afterwards and chatted until he left, said hello to Jani briefly and I asked for a hug, which I got. P. wanted to talk to Tuomas, who is her husband’s drum teacher, so she waited. A. and I talked to Tom Lumley and band. Jake thanked her for saving his life when she caught him and we chatted for a while. A. joined us and we slowly moved towards the exit as they wanted to kick us out. Meanwhile, P. was talking with Tuomas and we eventually walked over there to say hello to him and goodbye to her as I had a train to catch. We had a lovely, brief chat and learned that Jari is not on this tour for a ver y good reason. 🙂
Finally, Tuomas had to go pack and we had to leave. A. went of in the opposite direction, while P. and A. walked me to the train station where we said our goodbyes. Drinks would have been nice, but my train wasn’t waiting. Goodnight, see you all soon.
Setlist
Requiem for my Harlequin
Dreaming wide awake
Temple of Thought
Rogue
Firedancer
My Dark Disquiet
Sounds of yesterday
Choice Millionaire
Chasing Echoes
Stay forever
The Sweet Escape
Daze
Lift
Carnival of Rust
Ghostlight fall tour: Four gigs down, five to go. Next stop: Cologne