Poets of the Fall – Finlandia Klubi, Lahti; March 31st, 2017

The Finlandia Klubi in Lahti is one of the nice venues Poets of the Fall have repeatedly played at. Not only does it have a good size stage and good sound, but the gigs are comparably early and the audience is usually nice too. Thus, I was looking much forward to this concert and it turned out to be everything I had hoped for. A fun and relaxed show I thoroughly enjoyed. It is usually a great place to take pictures as well, but I had decided to give my camera a rest for the night and had the opportunity to really get into the music.

For the first time since late February I had a direct flight and thus didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night. It was a nice change. Arrived in Lahti just in time for the meet & greet, but had a regular ticket, so said a quick hello to my friends and waited outside. There were surprisingly few people waiting. When the doors opened for us there were around ten people. I even ended up in front row thanks to T., S. and K. making room for me. <3 It was only a one hour wait that we spent chatting.

From the moment the curtains opened at 9 pm to the last notes of ‘Children of the Sun’ ringing out time flew by so quickly it felt I could not even take a deep breath, because I might miss something if I did. Then again, it is impossible to see everything anyway. I was in a good spot on the left where I could actually see all of the guys quite well and did spend some time watching each of them. There were so many funny moments if was difficult at times not to pick up my camera, but I’m glad I didn’t – I just can’t always live life through a lens.

As usual my memory of what happened at which point in the show is rather terrible, but at least I do remember what happened and that seems more important than when. There was great energy in the room from the very start and again the guys seemed to be having a lot of fun. I got a smile from Jani right at the start of the show when he first spotted me and the first time Ollie came over to our side of the stage he pointed at T. who had just raised her camera. 🙂

We had a big speaker box in front of us with speakers hanging above too and that led to a lot of nice moments during the night from Marko stepping out n it to sing to Ollie putting his foot up there while playing. One of the most memorable moments of the night for me was Jani sitting there with his bass during ‘The Labyrinth’ and as he was playing I watched how single beads of sweat slowly rolled off his eyebrow and dripped down. It was fascinating to watch. 🙂

When they were playing ‘Dreaming wide awake’ I was waiting for Ollie to jump during the “flying deadly high” line and he didn’t at first, but later on he was standing on the keyboard raiser with Jaska and cued him so they jumped together. 😀 That so made me smile. During ‘Everything fades’ Captain tried standing with one foot on the drum raiser and one on the keyboard raiser. Jani saw that as an opportunity to dive through between Captain’s legs. And at one point, I think it might have been after ‘Rogue’ Jari was waving like the queen would and Marko did it back at him. 😀

There was some going down on their knees happening as well. Early in the concert, Jani was playing on his knees in front of the drums and much later Marko was singing party of ‘Carnival of Rust’ on his knees. Also they were pointing a lot at each other showing us whom we should watch and I remember JAska standing behind Ollie pointing down at him during a solo.

When they came back out for the encores Marko asked us a series of questions. I don’t remember the first one, but then it was “Does it feel good to use soap in the shower?” *cheers* “Shall I drink beer tonight?” *more cheers* and finally “Shall we play some more music?” *even more cheers*. Everyone was laughing, wondering what he was up to. During ‘War’ when he sang “you were there by my side on the front line” S., T., K. and I all pointed at the front row. He noticed and the next time around changed the lyrics to “by my side on the front row”. At least that is what I heard, but I might have been imagining things. 😉

For ‘Lift’ Jaska gave his space googles to Ollie and he wore them proudly. When he turned to Marko, Marko thumbed his nose at him, laughing. Jani got up on the big speaker box on the right and Jaska did the same on the left, but carefully checked if he’d have enough headspace there. He ended up taking a step forward and having to bend sideways a bit to fit under the low hanging speaker above. 😀 At the end they were throwing lots of guitar picks at the crowd. One of them hit Marko and Captain picked it up to throw it to the audience as well. 🙂

We had such a good time during the entire gig, laughing a lot and the audience was really responsive too. I absolutely loved it and hugged everyone when it was over. Such a nice evening. Soon we said goodbye and left, with S. and me talking well into the night at our hotel room afterwards.

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: 11 gigs down, 4 to go. Next stop: Kuopio