… and the past just blurry lines

Posted on by

Poets of the Fall – Pakkahuone, Tampere (Lost in Music); October 5th, 2019

After I was completely unprepared for the last Poets of the Fall concert I had seen and the strange melancholia I’d felt most of the night spilled right over into my blog post, I was more than ready to just have fun with them again and I did. With a perfect spot front row center, a good band before them and no camera I enjoyed watching, listening and just taking part in the show for one evening. The lights were great, the sound not so much, but I certainly had fun. 🙂

It was an early start for me since I had to go fro Nuremberg to Frankfurt airport, so I left my hostel around 6 am. Everything went smoothly from there, I easily made it to my train and was in Tampere in good time before the gig. Since this was Lost in Music festival, Poets were not on until 22:45, but the doors opened at 20:00. I had a bite to eat and chilled at my hostel for a bit before going to the venue around 19:00. I was alone and not 100% sure I was at the right doors, so I walked around to the bar at Klubi to ask. Ran into Ollie and Jani who said hello and chatted with me for a bit. Jani confirmed that it was indeed the Pakkahuone entrance, not the Klubi one. They even introduced me to their manger Mike, who just happened to drop in while I was still there. Now I have met the guys behind the emails. Nice. 🙂

When I got back to the entrance it was almost 19:30 and there were two people waiting. I. joined me soon and we chatted until they opened the doors. I was the first person to walk in and headed straight for front row center. Spent the time blogging and chatting and could not even remember who the first band was until I saw their backdrop. Oh, The Blanko. Yep, I’d seen them before, years ago, supporting Suburban Tribe. While we waited, we heard the band that was playing at Klubi. They were loud, whoever they were.

The Blanko were a lot better than I remembered. Their music was really good and their energy carried over into the audience. I loved their white outfits and how they went just a little crazy on stage. Good fun, good songs, ideal to make time go faster. 🙂 They played for about 45 minutes and even got an encore. Niiice!

Next was more waiting and again we heard the band that was playing at Klubi meanwhile. The crew was getting the stage ready for Poets and Glen, asked to give a setlist to someone at the front, failed completely at throwing it her way. He learned though, crushed the next one into a tight ball and threw it to someone else. :)Eventually everything was ready, the backdrop was up high and the wait ended with the familiar intro. “Whatever you do….”

We had wondered about the setlist in advance. As I’d suspected it was exactly the same as during my last gig on MS Viking Grace. Not ideal for me, but nice to sing along and move to. 🙂 They started with the power of ‘Dreaming wide awake’ and immediately I was going along, singing at the top of my lungs and catching some smiles from the guys for it. 😀 I was so much more present than I had been at my last show and it made me so very happy to be there. I had missed being up front. The audience was much into it and screamed loudly when Marko asked “where are you?” and held out the mic for us to respond.

Straight into ‘Locking up the sun’ with Marko turning in circles across stage and everyone powering through the song. I love that they start into the current show full steam. You can always slow down later. 😉 It made me smile that Ollie made the same hand move I did at the beginning of False Kings’. I think I might have originally copied it from him. ‘Temple of Thought’ was beautiful as always – that song never gets old! Somewhere during those first few songs Tiia came by and shook my hand in between taking pictures. 🙂

‘Rogue’ then gave us a chance to watch the guys do their thing, including some close up looks at two guitars and one bass for me. 🙂 I still find it fascinating to watch their fingers work. When Jani sat down at the edge of the stage and Marko asked us if we had our phones I knew what was coming. I was probably the only guest from outside the country, so he exclusively spoke Finnish that night, but with the regular things he says that does not make much of a difference. ‘The Sweet Escape’ was lovely and I suddenly remembered that there is a French version too – how could I have forgotten? Sadly they probably will not ever play that one outside of France. For the umteenth time I wondered how all those lights might look from the stage. I’ve seen plenty of pictures, which look great, but standing there and watching it must be all sorts of wonderful.

Everyone clapped along into the start of ‘My Dark Disquiet’ – that song has grown on me so much since I’ve first heard it. Especially with the new video in mind it is so much fun! 😀 Many of us screamed the “We’re false kings and bastards” line. 🙂 It was so good to have Jari back, who seemed to have a bunch of fun behind the drums. “Woohoho” Marko let us sing, leading into ‘War’ – that song never fails to touch me. During Jaska’s solo he was sitting on the stage floor, watching and of course there was some hugging going on too.

With full power we raced into ‘Daze’, then slowed down a bit for ‘Late Goodbye’. Since that song has been absent from setlists for so long I’ve started to appreciate it again and love watching Ollie play the guitar on it. <3 It is a great song to close the set with. They returned with ‘Diamonds 4 Tears’, then went straight into ‘Lift’. I had fun jumping around and seeing Ollie fly high with his guitar. Captain had been smiling happily all night, lost in his own thoughts and everyone else looked in a great mood too. We moved along, we sang and afterwards we cheered one last time for ‘Carnival of Rust’. It always makes me a little bit knowing that the show will definitely be over after this song, yet it is such a perfect closing song that it makes sense to put it last.

After one last selfie with the band, a few last smiles and all of them waving goodbye, they were gone. I. grinned just as broadly as I did. I would have loved to stick around for a bit, but I had an early train to catch and could use all the sleep I could get, so we got our jackets and left. Goodnight, see you next time. That was fun!

Setlist

Dreaming Wide Awake
Locking Up the Sun
False Kings
Temple of Thought
Rogue
The Sweet Escape
My Dark Disquiet
War
Daze
Late Goodbye

Encore:
Diamonds for Tears
Lift
Carnival of Rust

You always make me, always make me smile

Posted on by

Milow – Löwensaal, Nuremberg; October 4th, 2019

Seeing Milow play to a happy crowd at the sold out Löwensaal in Nuremberg was  a lot more fun than I had expected. It’s not that I have not enjoyed the other Milow shows I’ve seen, but this one came with the huge disappointment of Martin and James, who were supposed to be the support act, cancelling the tour short notice. So I went all the way to Nuremberg to seen an artist I did not buy the ticket for. I have to say he totally made it worth my while though. It was a brilliant show and I could not have asked for anything more.

Oh the excitement, when after five years of absence Martin and James announced they were going to tour again. I immediately checked the tour schedule and bought tickets for four shows. Sold Berlin eventually, because it was tricky work-wise, but kept everything else and booked accordingly. Then my friend Ragnar announced a Germany tour for the same week and I was like “Meh, sorry, bad timing.” secretly wishing to somehow make at least one show of the tour. Be careful what you wish for I guess. Just a couple of days before tour start, too late to sell the ticket for Frankfurt or Nuremberg, Martin and James cancelled. It was for health reasons, so not their fault, but the disappointment cut deep. Also I was left with having to travel far to see Milow, because I had a flight booked from Frankfurt between those two weekend shows. Well, at least I could cancel Cologne and see Ragnar in Hamburg now. 🙂 Of course when an additional show was added to his tour schedule on Sunday I knew I was not going to see Milow in Frankfurt either, cost be damned. So Nuremberg it was, already exhausted from two other gigs and not really sure what to expect, because I had listened to the album only once.

Everything went surprisingly well and I even managed to sleep a bit before I had to go to the venue. When I got there I still wasn’t feeling it, but I met some nice people to chat with and one told me there was space upstairs to stand. Sounded good to me. Eventually, just before they let us in I was getting excited after all. Milow had always been fun, why should it be any different this time? They let us in, I went upstairs with my new acquaintance and she was right about the great view from there. Perfect. 😀

The place was packed soon enough and it looked like they had not found a replacement support act. I hoped they would not let us wait until 9 before they started. They didn’t. At around 8:20 the music stopped and everyone started clapping in unison. Yes, we wanted the show! Milow came out side stage with a lamp and balloons attached to his back and walked right into the middle of the audience to the mixing desk. It looked funny and made me think of Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Night on Earth’ and the New York taxi driver that is called “Helmet Lampshade” by his guest. Anyway, Milow played ‘You don’t know’ right there and immediately won over the audience. By the end of the song he walked towards the stage, left lamp and balloons with his crew and met his band up there. With ‘You and me’ the show was in full swing and pretty much everyone sang along, at least downstairs.

Milow told us that the last time in Nuremberg their keyboarder had had a somewhat uncool accident and they were all stressed out about it, but so far he was super healthy and everything was great. ‘Laura’s Song’ was next and I recognized it as one I had liked on the album. The band was amazing. They are so good, it makes me happy to hear them play and the sound was brilliant too. So maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to go all the way to Nuremberg after all. I was thoroughly enjoying myself. The audience was responsive and everyone on stage seemed to be in a good mood too. 🙂 ‘Greatest Expectations’ had us all clap along and made me smile even more than I’d already had been. Milow never fails to lift my mood. It ended in a greta sing-along lead by Nina. 😀

He explained how the next song was about him and his dad and how, growing up in the 90ies, he had his walls covered with music posters, but the ceiling with NBA posters and how he and his friends wanted to jump as high as Michael Jordan, still believing everything was possible and that was the spirit he was trying to capture in the song. I did not remember it from the alum, but it was very beautiful. After that he asked us if it was OK to play some older songs too and everyone cheered. He promised to find balance between the two and asked Tommy if that was OK. They had been joking all night about Tommy having to answer questions, so his reply naturally was “Is that a question?” 😀 ‘No no no’ and ‘Summer Days’ followed, both with fun sing-alongs. Hell yes, it was nice to celebrate summer one last time now that it seems over for this year.

Then Milow surprised me by speaking German, but of course, he had moderated “Sing meinen Song” on German TV and he learned it for that. He explained how he always says yes to a challenge, say yes first, think about it later. He learned well though and proved it with covering two German songs, first Johannes Oerding’s ‘Weiße Tauben’ and then Wincent Weiss’ ‘Musik sein’, the latter turning to English in the end. We were all laughing when he said he tried to speak more German and flipped a switch in his head. It’s only funny in German though – “einen Knopf in meinem Kopf”. He joked about people writing he still didn’t sound German even when singing it. He certainly had an accent, but it sounded alright to me. 🙂 It was a cool addition to the show.

After the  German intermission we were taught the sing-along for the next song, ‘Loud & Clear’. It rocked! Milow told us how Martin and James were supposed to tour with them like back in the old days when they had played almost 100 shows together and how he had convinced them to get back together and come on tour with them. Sadly one of the, got sick just before the tour and was in no shape to do it so they had to cancel. Instead of trying to find a replacement, they decided to just play a longer show. It sure was fun so far! ‘She’ was lovely and ‘Little in the Middle’ had everyone singing again. 🙂

They announced a brand new song called ‘Lost Boys’ and asked us to support it only if we liked it. 😀 Judging by the reaction downstairs I am pretty sure it had been played on this tour already. It was a good one too. I liked it a lot. The tropical, feel-good ‘Tourist’ followed – the melody reminded me of BAP’s ‘Shoeshine’. Milow mused whether he should do the next one and asked who had been been to the last show at Löwensaal, who had seen him before and who was there for the first time. He talked about recognizing people at the front and trying to keep it interesting for them like practicing new moves. In the end he said he’d do the next one for those who were there for the first time – as if he was ever going to play a show without ‘Ayo Technology’. 😀 It is still just as much fun as it was the first time around. ‘Howling at the Moon’ ended the main set with more clapping, singing and some jumping too. 😀

Soon Milow was back with Nina and Tommy for ‘Building Bridges’, which was gorgeous. Then the rest of the band joined them for ‘Help’ and it was even more beautiful. I love it when they do an acoustic set. <3 Two more songs they promised us at this point and two more we got. The new ‘Nobody needs you like I do’ with another wonderful sing-along. I already could not stop smiling. Somewhere along the way I had choked up too, but it’s all OK, I felt safe to do that. 🙂 The show eded with ‘Lean into me’ the title song of the latest album. He introduced the band and had us cheer for the crew as well. It was a lovely ending to a lovely show and I’m happy I went to see it.

pictures of this concert

Setlist

You Don’t Know
You and Me (In My Pocket)
Laura’s Song
Greatest Expectations
Michael Jordan
No No No
Summer Days
Weiße Tauben (Johannes Oerding cover)
Musik sein (Wincent Weiss cover)
Loud & Clear
She
Little in the Middle
Lost Boys
Tourist
Ayo Technology (50 Cent cover)
Howling at the Moon

Encore:
Building Bridges
Help
Nobody needs you like I do
Lean into me